But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.

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.

There's no way for them to take away my sadness, but they can make sure I am not empty of all the other feelings.

I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.

Hereditary boundsmen! Know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

If we lose our sanity ... We can but howl the lugubrious howl of idiots, the howl of the utterly lost howling their nowhereness.

I have to conclude that fiction is better at 'the truth' than a factual record.

Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture and ourselves.

Black is too morbid; red will set them on edge; pink is too juvenile; orange is freakish

A brand is an emotional construct. It helps you to project an image to the world which you'd like to own.

The British are so funny.

I have learned two things in my life: there is a God, and I am not him.