Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompani….

The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life. I wanted to follow Mr. Monte around f….

Will his work survive? Alas, I worry that it will not. As an American liberal with impeccable credentials, I would like to say that political correct….

The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina..

My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books..

Her library would have been valuable to a bibliophile except she treated her books execrably. I would rarely open a volume that she had not desecrate….

Know this. I think you could be special if you only thought there was anything special about yourself..

I'd be a conservative if I'd never met any. They're selfish, mean-spirited, egocentric, reactionary, and boring..

American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hear….

…Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and fourth porpoise neared. The visitation was something so rare and perfect tha….

You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life….

Through sports a coach can offer a boy a secret way to sneak up on the mystery that is manhood..

We've pretended too much in our family, Luke, and hidden far too much. I think we're all going to pay a high price for our inability to face the trut….

Every woman I had ever met who walked through the world appraised and classified by an extraordinary physicality had also received the keys to an unb….

I can't pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn my hand when I touch its jacket, or hand me over a promiss….

It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we ….

If smallness was fortune, then I had come across a treasure, infinitesimal and beyond value. I felt lucky. You had to decide what was estimable and p….

Every industry is going to be affected (by the aging population). This creates tremendous opportunities and tremendous challenges..

Families without songs are unhappy families..

Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don't leave out a single word..

But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention..