Writing in the first person automatically gives you a point of view.

I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.

I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other's sure to.

I've never been a teacher in my life.

The instant she saw the letter she squinted her eyes and bent her lips in a tough tiny smile that advanced her age immeasurably. "Darling," she instructed me, "would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.

She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox.

Everybody has to feel superior to somebody," she said. "But it's customary to present a little proof before you take the privilege.