Don't leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.

Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.

If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.

I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em.

I listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them, kill them, turn back time to the moment before I had talked so that I could have another chance to save myself.

He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit.

It had been only through books-at best, no more than vicarious cultural transfusions-that I had managaed to keep myself alive in a negatively vital way. Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.