There are no verdicts to childhood, only consequences, and the bright freight of memory.

My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.

The most powerful words in English are, 'Tell me a story.'

Paranoia has a sharper taste if the danger is real.

We children sat transfixed before that moon our mother had called forth from the waters. When the moon had reached its deepest silver, my sister, Savannah, though only three, cried aloud to our mother, to Luke and me, to the river and the moon, "Oh, Mama, do it again!" And I had my earliest memory.

The English language on her tongue became a smoke-screen, without her eyes changing expression in the least.

Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.