I can't pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn my hand when I touch its jacket, or hand me over a promissory note of such immense power that it contains the formula that will change everything about me.

Writing has never been that simple for me.

I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing.

Except for memory, time would have no meaning at all.

South Carolina is not a state; it is a cult.

I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

Humanity is best described as inhumanity.