Writing is a supernatural thing..

I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must b….

Now I had seen the grief of the two strongest people I knew. And somehow, Daddy's and Edie's crying made them seem even stronger to me. It was better….

But you cannot know a place without loving it and hating it and feeling everything in between. You cannot understand a complex people by only looking….

Because they [Americans] want to be thought of as a rich nation, they are very ashamed of this place [Appalachia] that has come to represent poverty,….

Strange, how such a small realization can affect everyone's life forever. In movies there is always a carefully staged moment - a big crescendo of mu….

Whole scenes of your life slip away forever if you don't put them down in ink..

In New York, the buildings are like mountains in some ways, but they are only alive because of the people living in them. Real mountains are alive al….

I had always found comfort in the leaves, in their silence. They were like a parchment that holds words of wisdom. Simply holding them in my hand gav….

I've never understood why people run to get out of the rain in the summertime... People will drive miles and miles to go jump in a cool swimming hole….

Maybe all the secrets of life were written on the surface of leaves, waiting to be translated. If I touched them long enough, I might be given some i….

Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself..

Since that night I have come to understand that sometimes the best families of all are those we create ourselves, the people we choose to be with..