I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.

Honor is the presence of God in man.

Each divorce is the death of a small civilization.

Walking the streets of Charleston in the late afternoons of August was like walking through gauze or inhaling damaged silk.

Basketball allowed me to revere my father without him knowing what I was up to. I took up basketball as a form of homage and mimicry.

The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.

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.