I am open to the accusation that I see compost as an end it itself. But we do grow some real red damn tomatoes such as you can't get in the stores. And potatoes, beans, lettuce, collards, onions, squash, cauliflower, eggplant, carrots, peppers. Dirt in you own backyard, producing things you eat. Makes you wonder.

A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.

That's American English for you: more roots than a mangrove swamp.

I think what's really hard is making sense and making what you write clear and smooth-flowing.

I am open to the accusation that I see compost as an end it itself. But we do grow some real red damn tomatoes such as you can't get in the stores. And potatoes, beans, lettuce, collards, onions, squash, cauliflower, eggplant, carrots, peppers. Dirt in you own backyard, producing things you eat. Makes you wonder.

People may think of Southern humor in terms of missing teeth and outhouse accidents, but the best of it is a rich vein running through the best of Southern literature.

Somebody informed me recently that the key to every art, from writing to gardening to sculpture, is creativity. I beg to differ.