I think I learned about the relationship between books and life from Margaret Mitchell.

Without music, life is a journey through a desert.

It's impossible to explain to a Yankee what 'tacky' is. They simply have no word for it up north, but my God, do they ever need one.

I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low-country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders.

I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.

The most powerful words in English are, 'Tell me a story.'

Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don't leave out a single word.

I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.

Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.

There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.

The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life.

Work therefore is designed to release all this abundance of wealth hidden inside everything.

Vanity might be a "sin" according to some lights, but he thought in measured doses it was one of life's allowable simple pleasures. It helped everyone get through their days.

Religion would have us believe that immortality is reserved for the gods. We remain skeptical.

One day, I will tell my story... where I came from and where I am now and how I remained positive.

We are actually more afraid of change than we are of death

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.

The highest virtue seems as low as a valley.

What you hold in your heart, you will see in your world.

Like a therapist hairdressers are in a position of trust. We are transforming not just how a person looks but how they feel.

It's a funny place, this world. Hate has rights. Love has none.