Of the Yamacraw children, I can say little. I don't think I changed the quality of their lives significantly or altered the inexorable fact that they were imprisoned by the very circumstance of their birth.

But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.

I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment.

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

I still write in long hand. I type like a chimpanzee.

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

I don't believe in happy families.