My mother raised me to be a writer.

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.

I’m planting a tree to teach me to make the world a better place.

All writers are insane!

Any project that I find encouraging that isn't attached to a studio, I can go to them, which I definitely would. You have to take an interest in what you do.

I love going out. I love partying.

There may be many things wrong with the United States but only a blind fool who hasn't been paying attention for the last twenty years would hold up Europe as the alternative.

Many of the artists are not pretending to have an objective point of view. They're revealing the subjectivity.

If you're good, you fail seventy percent of the time. You have to be mentally capable of blocking that out and keep going.

A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right.

Memories were the markers of the journey through life. It was necessary to know where you had come from. Only then could you know where you were going.

A, surround yourself by positive people who will help you reach your goal and support you. And B, go for it!