I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?

Evil is so seductive. It needs to grind you up and make you its slave.

Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter.

Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.