But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.

Once he had drawn first blood, his war against the property of the state lost all its moral resonance.

Red Hook Road made me happy, and happy to be alive. It took me out of my home on the coast of South Carolina, placed me in the town along Red hook Road, and changed me the way good books always do.

My mother thought of my father as half barbarian and half blunt instrument, and she isolated him from his children.

I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.

A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts.

Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure. You read them and they fall asleep to happy dreams for the next 10 years. If you do them the favor of understanding them, of taking in their portions of grief and wisdom, then they settle down in contented residence in your heart.