College was to teach me that I was one of life's journeymen, eager to excel but lacking the requisite gifts.

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 pursuit of greatness means that laziness has no place in your life.

I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low-country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders.

The safe places could only be visited; they could only grant a momentary intuition of sanctuary. The moment always came when we had to return to our real life to face the wounds and grief indigenous to our homr by the river.

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

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