I believe in the goodness of imagination.

It's something everybody wants-for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.

You put his brain in a bird, the bird would fly backwards" -Secret Life of the Bees

I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one.

Betrayal of any kind is hard, but betrayal by one's religion is excruciating. It makes you want to rage and weep.

I marvel at how good I was before I met him, how I lived molded to the smallest space possible, my days the size of little beads that passed without passion through my fingers. So few people know what they're capable of. At forty-two I'd never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem - my chronic inability to astonish myself.

T. Ray said 'Who do you think you are? Julias Shakespeare?' The man sincerely thought that was Shakespeare's first name, and if you think I should have corrected him, you are ignorant about the art of survival.