Rape is a crime against sleep and memory; it's afterimage imprints itself like an irreversible negative from the camera obscura of dreams.

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.

He wanted to be a poet, ' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words to be one.

All God made creatures have equal potential to grow and succeed in their own capacity. They just need the right guidance and the space to perform!!!

Where there is contempt/scornful rejection and slander, there wealth will not remain.

it’s being branded a failure that causes the most pain

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

I was a pretty happy kid, I had to fake it. I had to get into this miserable character before I wrote poems.

It is better to do nothing Than to do what is wrong. For whatever you do, you do to yourself.

Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.

I was a young cat, and I was very fast, but I wasn't telling no kind of story.

I'm impossible to direct. I couldn't get myself to do anything.