I wrote to explain my own life to myself, stories are the vessels I use to interpret the world to myself.

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.

If there is something you think you can do well, perfect the action.

One only really sees with the heart.

There are so many worse things than death. Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse.

Nobody knows really what they're doing and there's two ways to go with that information. One is to be afraid and the other is to be liberated, and I choose to be liberated by it.

Streams and mountains never stay the same.

Economists, on the whole, think well of what they do themselves and much less well of what their professional colleagues do.

Laughter is what spills over the edge of an inspired life.

A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself

Obviously, the answer to oil spills is to paper-train the tankers.

Some friendship is closely akin to treachery.