He unscrewed the lid, set it on the dash, snorted from the bottle twice, banged the steering wheel, and said, 'You got to be ready to die every day - then you got a chance.'

Long, dark, and lovely she had been, in those days before her mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go.

Fading light buttered the ridges until shadows licked them clean and they were lost to nightfall.

Never. Never ask for what ought to be offered.

The heart makes dreams seem like ideas.

Ree, brunette and sixteen, with milk skin and abrupt green eyes, stood bare-armed in a fluttering yellowed dress, face to the wind, her cheeks reddening as if smacked and smacked again.

I said shut up once already, with my mouth.

This is how sudden things happened that haunted forever.

The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.

I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.

Pine trees with low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could.

Don't fall in love or let anyone's life become more important than your own.

Use your voice for good in this world, it may not seem like it is getting you anywhere, but in the end good wins.

What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because the mass of citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be.

I prefer buying things and figuring out where to put them later than regretting not buying them.

I have read the last page of the Bible and I know for sure that we win in the end.

The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you're off it.

The way I look at it, a footballer wouldn't play in flip-flops or dip their feet in acid and then expect to get to David Beckham's level. My voice is my living, so I'll be looking after it.

The more we become civilized, the more we simultaneously understand our need to be virtuous, and our need to understand our experiences on a subconscious level.

Our task is not to leave a record of what happened on this date for those who will inherit the Earth; history will take care of that.

To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles.