Strength just comes in one brand - you. Stand up at sunrise and meet what they send you and keep your hair combed.

The death of every art form seems imminent at least once in every century; but while the very funeral arrangements go forward, some child is born who….

You have to realize that your work is done by your body, and if your body is in very bad health, it's not going to work for you no matter how young y….

The older I've got the less I find myself going back and re-reading or really reading new fiction or poetry..

Southerners ask intimate questions in the way monkeys groom each other for lice, not to pry but to make you feel cared for..

From the age of six I wanted to be an artist. At that point I meant a painter, but it turned out what I really meant was I was someone who was very i….

Cities are the least permanent things in our civilization..

The sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives..

Even now, after whatever gains feminism has made in involving fathers in the rearing of their children, I still think virtually all of us spend the m….

I've met little meanness, wherever I went..

Many Americans would die naked in the middle of the road before they'd tell you what's hurt them most. But a born Southerner will show you the cell i….

Writing is a fearsome but grand vocation—potentially healing but likewise deadly. I wouldn’t trade my life for the world..

A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens-second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter….

The only thing more destructive than a tornado is a family..

Life is short and often stingy; feast the heart with what it craves, short of cruelty, and let the world wonder..

As a child I thought it was very boring when I had to sit with [my mother] on the city streets, but the time sank deep and surfaced later..

I think we Southerners have talked a fair amount of malarkey about the mystique of being Southern..

Stand up at sunrise and meet what they send you..

What I still ask for daily-for life as long as I have work to do, and work as long as I have life..