Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.

You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say?

You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human... And although you don't have complete control over the narrative - no author does, I can tell you - you could nevertheless create it.

The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

Sometimes what I write on the page frightens me, so I feel free when I write, but I don't feel safe.

You been gone too long, Sula. Not too long, but maybe too far.