Like every Southern writer, I thought that I needed to write the next Gone With the Wind.

You can take my heart, but I can't let you take my dog.

Don't try to follow in my footsteps. Make your own footsteps! No one else can tell the stories that are inside of you except for you.

Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation's sovereignty.

I never felt isolated; I just liked being alone. I think that some people are good at being alone, and some people arent, and as a child, I really liked it.

Reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.

Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.

[On men:] ... you never know what they're like until you get them home and take them out of their packages.

As a Southerner, I love obstacles for my characters.

Everyone had a reason for everything they did, even if that reason was sometimes stupidity.

You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.

Refusing dominance over others by using money is a clear sign of wisdom.

Obedience, forgiveness, and devotion are in the blood of every victim.

Religion is an irrational construct.

CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it's just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

Physiologically, it simply doesn't matter whether your anger is justified or not. The body doesn't make moral judgements about feelings; it just responds.

A free man must not be told how to think, either by the government or by social activists. He may certainly be shown the right way, but he must not accept being forced into it.

Love yourself-accept yourself-forgive yourself-and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.

I don't believe in luck. Luck comes to men of action.

The chief fruit of the First World War was the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as a national power.