One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family.

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.

It all came apart once you started caring for something outside yourself.

It is really a puzzle what drives one to take one's work so devilishly seriously.

Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family. (in a letter to his wife)

I'm afraid of making a mistake. I'm not totally neurotic, but I'm pretty neurotic about it. I'm as close to totally neurotic as you can get without being totally neurotic.

As a society, we can and should invest more money in education.

I'm glad that young black people are successful with the music. I'm not a hater.

Every championship, by definition, is historic.

The illustrious and noble ought to place before them certain rules and regulations, not less for their hours of leisure and relaxation than for those of business.

When God gives a vision, transact business on that line, no matter what it costs.

Self-respect is to the soul as oxygen is to the body. Deprive a person of oxygen, and you kill his body; deprive him of self-respect and you kill his spirit.