In Charleston, more than elsewhere, you get the feeling that the twentieth century is a vast, unconscionable mistake.

I do not have any other way of saying it. I think it happens but once and only to the very young when it feels like your skin could ignite at the mere touch of another person. You get to love like that but once.

The water was pure and cold and came out of the Apennines tasting like snow melted in the hands of a pretty girl.

The mind is an intricate mechanism that can be run on the fuels of both victory and defeatism.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

If smallness was fortune, then I had come across a treasure, infinitesimal and beyond value. I felt lucky. You had to decide what was estimable and precious in your life and set out to find it. The objects you valued defined you.

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