Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.

The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.

Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature's profligate generosity.

My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of an indrawn tide.

American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.

There is no downside to winning. It feels forever fabulous.

One does not know where love will take you.