I've Always Found Paranoia To Be A

I Would Always Be A Better Hater Of Things And Institutions Than A Lover Of Them.

Because She Deserved My Tears If Anyone On Earth Ever Did. I Could Feel The Tears Within Me, Undiscovered, And Untouched In Their Inland Sea. Those Tears Had Been With Me Always.

Charleston Has A Landscape That Encourages Intimacy And Partisanship. I Have Heard It Said That An Inoculation To The Sights And Smells Of The Carolina Lowcountry Is An Almost Irreversible Antidote To The Charms Of Other Landscapes, Other Alien Geographies. You Can Be Moved Profoundly By Other Vistas, By Other Oceans, By Soaring Mountain Ranges, But You Can Never Be Seduced. You Can Even Forsake The Lowcountry, Renounce It For Other Climates, But You Can Never Completely Escape The Sensuous, Semitropical Pull Of Charleston And Her Marshes.

Losing Prepares You For The Heartbreak, Setback, And The Tragedy That You Will Encounter In The World More Than Winning Ever Can. By Licking Your Wounds You Learn How To Avoid Getting Wounded The Next Time.

Here's What I Want From A Book, What I Demand, What I Pray For When I Take Up A Novel And Begin To Read The First Sentence: I Want Everything And Nothing Less, The Full Measure Of A Writer's Heart. I Want A Novel So Poetic That I Do Not Have To Turn To The Standby Anthologies Of Poetry To Satisfy That Itch For Music, For Perfection And Economy Of Phrasing, For Exactness Of Tone. Then, Too, I Want A Book So Filled With Story And Character That I Read Page After Page Without Thinking Of Food Or Drink Because A Writer Has Possessed Me, Crazed With An Unappeasable Thirst To Know What Happens Next.