There are no ideas in the South, just barbecue.

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.

Distance is an outer phenomenon. In the inner world, everything is connected with love.

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

What we are here to do is to meet and become the person we are.

He who is his own guide is guided by a fool.

President Obama, by the way, is, I think, making his first presidential European trip. And while he's there in Europe, he plans to fire the CEO's of BMW and Volkswagen.

As long as people want to hear me play and as long as I'm able to play, then I will. I enjoy playing and performing. If I wasn't doing that, what else would I do?

And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone.

There's the beautiful people and then there's the rest of us.

The hues of bliss more brightly glow, Chastis'd by sabler tints of woe.