Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another - physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.

My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that's all I remember.

And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.

She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.

All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.

Pain. I seem to have an affection, a kind of sweettooth for it. Bolts of lightning, little rivulets of thunder. And I the eye of the storm.

You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.