My father wouldn't let me take typing in childhood.

You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves.

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

No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch.

Carolina beach music," Dupree said, coming up on the porch. "The holiest sound on earth.