To describe our growing up in the lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, 'There. That taste. That's the taste of my childhood.'

A story untold could be the one that kills you.

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

Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.

Honor is the presence of God in man.

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

Love had always issued out of the places that hurt the most.