It did not look like the work of God, but it might have represented the handicraft of a God with a joyous sense of humor, a dancing God who loved mischief as much as prayer,...

In families, there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.

i was delighted I had offended her upholstered sensibilities.

The body’s a funny thing. It’s so full of surprises that it makes conventional wisdom seem silly.

it had been a winter of deadening seriousness, when all the illusions and bright dreams of my early twenties had withered and died. I did not yet have the interior resources to dream new dreams;...

Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.

What’s important is that a story changes every time you say it out loud. When you put it on paper, it can never change. But the more times you tell it, the more changes will...

South Carolina is not a state; it is a cult.

Hurt is a great teacher, maybe the greatest of all.

In every southerner, beneath the veneer of clichés lies a much deeper motherlode of cliché. But even cliché is overlaid with enormous power when a child is involved.

He lived out his whole life as an anthem to the pleasures of a bad mood.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

A portion of guilt is standard issue for southern boys; our whole lives are convoluted, egregious apologies to our mothers because our fathers have made us such flawed husbands.

I’ve always admired people who give accurate directions, and the tribe is small.

I can forgive almost any crime if a great story is left in its wake.

You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.

I thought that I must always search for the remarkable combinations, add unknowns, mix things that were clearly marked with things beyond marking. I would leave the simulated test and enter into forbidden territory. I...

Evil would always come to me disguised in systems and dignified by law.

The narrator analyzes that the maturing, passing away boy within him, “had issued me a challenge as he passed the baton to the man in me: He had challenged me to have the courage to...