I have a theory that Southern madhouses are full of gifted women who were stifled.

Didn't I say I'd always be your same stars? If you get to missing me, just look up.

That sinuous southern life, that oblique and slow and complicated old beauty, that warm thick air and blood warm sea, that place of mists and languor and fragrant richness.

A real friendship is a light thing. A real friend holds you loosely.

Perhaps the most important thing we can ever do in our lives is find a way to keep the wild-both the wild inside and the wild outside us-and tap into it.

I don't think you ever think of a big city as sweet or community, but there are cities that I think of as charming and particular and interesting cities. I live in one now, Charleston.

Anger is its own excuse and its own reward.

I don't know if I would do sequels. I almost feel like when I'm done with them, they're going to have to find their own way.

Life can only be kept by giving it away. But then it will bloom.

I think every creative impulse that a working writer, or artist of any sort has, comes out of that dark old country where dreams come from.

I think we all get too caught up in doing instead of just being sometimes.

Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

Crawling still gets you there.

Every man should have a college education in order to show him how little the thing is really worth.

No one whose first concern is feeling good can be a disciple. We are called to carry a cross and to glorify God.

When I meet people on airplanes and they find out I'm an economist, they usually ask about stock tips.

Only sing - don't do cheap songs, don't do silly songs, just do, just do wonderful songs that are well-written.

I like all sorts of chocolate. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, anything.

A rejection of the way a woman speaks is often a way of blaming or dismissing her without dealing with the content of what she is saying.

This - the leadership of the mayor is crucial, because it is to the mayor that people will look to provide the vision, the energy, and the sense of confidence in the rebuilding and the recovery.

What we feel is beyond words. We should be ashamed of our poems.