A small profit is better than a big loss.

One thing's sure and nothing surer. The rich get richer and the poor get- children

She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she’d thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130)

Faulkner came from my region and taught me how you could write about a place.

As I get older I find myself thinking it all begins with Shakespeare.

It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start

The woman doesn't look up. It's as if she's deaf. Maybe she is. Maybe she's like the Cambodian women I've read about, the ones who witnessed so many atrocities that they have willed themselves blind. Maybe that's what you have to do sometimes to survive. You kill off part of yourself, your hearing or eyesight, your capacity for hope.