It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.

I smile, now, thinking: we all like to think we are important enough to need psychiatrists

I suppose I'll always be over-vulnerable, slightly paranoid.

I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.

I want so obviously, so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.

The claw of the magnolia, drunk on its own scents, asks nothing of life.