Fantasy Is One Of The Soul's Brighter

My Mother, Southern To The Bone, Once Told Me, “all Southern Literature Can Be Summed Up In These Words: ‘on The Night The Hogs Ate Willie, Mama Died When She Heard What Daddy Did To Sister.’” She Raised Me Up To Be A Southern Writer, But It Wasn’t Easy.

I Don’t Know Why It Is That I Have Always Been Happier Thinking Of Somewhere I Have Been Or Wanted To Go, Than Where I Am At The Time. I Find It Difficult To Be Happy In The Present.

To Describe Our Growing Up In The Lowcountry Of South Carolina, I Would Have To Take You To The Marsh On A Spring Day, Flush The Great Blue Heron From Its Silent Occupation, Scatter Marsh Hens As We Sink To Our Knees In Mud, Open An Oyster With A Pocketknife And Feed It To You From The Shell And Say, 'there. That Taste. That's The Taste Of My Childhood.'

Few Things Linger Longer Or Become More Indwelling Than That Feeling Of Both Completion And Emptiness When A Great Book Ends. That The Book Accompanies The Reader Forever From That Day Forward Is Part Of Literature's Profligate Generosity.

No Story Is A Straight Line. The Geometry Of A Human Life Is Too Imperfect And Complex, Too Distorted By The Laughter Of Time And The Bewildering Intricacies Of Fate To Admit The Straight Line Into Its System Of Laws.