These were people... who built redwood decks on their mobile homes and have no idea that smart-aleck Yankees think that is somehow funny. People of the pines. My people.

Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.

This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven.

It was a good moment, the kind you would like to press between the pages of a book, or hide in your sock drawer, so you could touch it again.

Don’t worry about what people think, because once it’s all over the people who love you will make you what they want you to be, and the people who don’t love you will, too.

I believe that if we are going to write about life and death, we should not do it from the cheap seats.

Momma kept a garden, which sounds romantic to people who have never held a hoe

This is home and home is not something you remember, it is something you see every day and every moment.

I made some friends for life, the way I usually make them. Any jackass can be pleasant company, but if people help you when you're at your worst, that's a friend.

You do not hate the time you waste; it evokes a much more passive emotion than that. You only wish you had it back, like a quarter in an unlucky slot machine.

It is easy to be liked when the world has no jagged edges, when life is electric blankets and peach ice cream. But to be beloved, a man needs a dragon.

Why settle for anything less than total life fulfillment. Start by filling yourself up with you!

Wait in expectant of the desired wishes.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

The happiest people aren't necessarily the most successful, or the most popular, or the most talented. They're the ones who are interested in the people around them.

Modesty and dew love the shade.

It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.

Real worship involves waiting.

She was ugly from the front, and I said ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. Well, I could handle it behind her.

You come to love not by discovering the ideal individual, yet by figuring out how to see a blemished individual flawlessly.

Don't ever let anyone shake your faith in yourself, because that's really all that you have.