If you want to study writing, read Dickens

Before the war it was always the United States *are*, after the war it was the United States is... it made us an is.

When you grow up in a totally segregated society, where everybody around you believes that segregation is proper, you have a hard time. You can't believe how much it's a part of your thinking.

North was only a direction indicated by a compass--if a man had one, that is, for otherwise there was no north or south or east or west; there was only the brooding desolation.

I used to write sonnets and various things, and moved from there into writing prose, which, incidentally, is a lot more interesting than poetry, including the rhythms of prose.

Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.

People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made.