I've never shown anybody a draft of anything.

Before the war it was always the United States *are*, after the war it was the United States is... it made us an is.

The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.

If you want to study writing, read Dickens. That's how to study writing, or Faulkner, or D.H. Lawrence, or John Keats. They can teach you everything you need to know about writing.

People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made.

When you grow up in a totally segregated society, where everybody around you believes that segregation is proper, you have a hard time. You can't believe how much it's a part of your thinking.

A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.

As a Southerner I would have to say that one of the main importances of the War is that Southerners have a sense of defeat which none of the rest of the country has.

I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.

I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.

Longevity conquers scandal every time.

It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.

Maybe I did mean to kill myself. I didn't think it outright but...maybe the truth is, I didn't--I don't--much care one way or th'other.

Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.

I remember the first Mortal Kombat, when that came out, that was the hardest game of all time. There would be lines at the arcade around the block, and I still love all of the Mortal Kombat games.

I live in the 17th century. I don't have a computer. I don't look at the internet. I use a cellphone, and that's about my only connection to the modern world.

The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished; they did not engender those beliefs, and they are powerless to destroy them.

Reason may be the lever, but sentiment gives you the fulcrum and the place to stand on if you want to move the world.

As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

I thin many people's deviant behavior starts with dreams because dreams are so non-linear... as if there's an assumption that everything has to be linear or has to be plotted.

Singing wasn't a reality for me, until other people started noticing I sounded good.