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.'

Without music, life is a journey through a desert.

Carolina beach music," Dupree said, coming up on the porch. "The holiest sound on earth.

Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.

You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves.