And Sandy Martindale ... dated Elvis before the rhinestone jumpsuits and the drugs, when he was sharp and cool and jagged, like porcelain that has been hurled against a wall.

Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.

This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven.

It was a good moment, the kind you would like to press between the pages of a book, or hide in your sock drawer, so you could touch it again.

Don’t worry about what people think, because once it’s all over the people who love you will make you what they want you to be, and the people who don’t love you will, too.

I believe that if we are going to write about life and death, we should not do it from the cheap seats.

Momma kept a garden, which sounds romantic to people who have never held a hoe

This is home and home is not something you remember, it is something you see every day and every moment.

I made some friends for life, the way I usually make them. Any jackass can be pleasant company, but if people help you when you're at your worst, that's a friend.

You do not hate the time you waste; it evokes a much more passive emotion than that. You only wish you had it back, like a quarter in an unlucky slot machine.

It is easy to be liked when the world has no jagged edges, when life is electric blankets and peach ice cream. But to be beloved, a man needs a dragon.

When one writer tries to silence another, he silences every writer-and in the end he also silences himself.

Surviving is one thing, " he said quietly, his voice suddenly calmer, "but you've got to have a reason to do it. There's no point in living if you don't have anything worth living for.

People sometimes attribute my success to my genius; all the genius I know anything about is hard work.

Without a song the day would never end Without a song the road would never bend When things go wrong a man ain't got a friend Without a song

There's no such thing as an anti-war film.

If you are not rising with ethichs, you will sink with every rise!

I think the boy should pay. 'Cuz that's just the way it works on a first-date. But if he doesn't offer, then I will pay... and then just not go out with him again.

Enthusiasm is the height of man; it is the passing from the human to the divine.

He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.

Disappointment is often the salt of life.