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

Looking around, I thought the human species was in fine shape and tried to think of something more beautiful than women and couldn't come up with a thing. The propagation of the species was a dance of total joy.

Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers.

Saints make wonderful grandfathers and lousy husbands.

I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure.

My attraction to story is a ceaseless current that runs through the center of me. My inexhaustible ardor for reading seems connected to my hunger for storylines that show up in both books and in the great tumbling chaos of life.

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