Losing prepares you for the heartbreak, setback, and the tragedy that you will encounter in the world more than winning ever can. By licking your wounds you learn how to avoid getting wounded the next time.

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

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

There's no word in the language I revere more than 'teacher.' My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I've honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher.

My mother thought of my father as half barbarian and half blunt instrument, and she isolated him from his children.

Fantasy is one of the soul's brighter porcelains.

When men talk about the agony of being men, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of self-pity. And when women talk about being women, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of blaming men.