The Great Teachers Fill You Up With

Here's What I Love: When A Great Writer Turns Me Into A Jew From Chicago, A Lesbian Out Of South Carolina, Or A Black Woman Moving Into A Subway Entrance In Harlem. Turn Me Into Something Else, Writers Of The World. Make Me Muslim, Heretic, Hermaphrodite. Put Me Into A Crusader's Armor, A Cardinal's Vestments. Let Me Feel The Pygmy's Heartbeat, The Queen's Breast, The Torturer's Pleasure, The Nile's Taste, Or The Nomad's Thirst. Tell Me Everything That I Must Know. Hold Nothing Back.

No Story Is A Straight Line. The Geometry Of A Human Life Is Too Imperfect And Complex, Too Distorted By The Laughter Of Time And The Bewildering Intricacies Of Fate To Admit The Straight Line Into Its System Of Laws.

A Story Is A Living Thing, It Moves And Shifts.

It's Impossible To Explain To A Yankee What `tacky' Is. They Simply Have No Word For It Up North, But My God, Do They Ever Need One.

In Charleston, More Than Elsewhere, You Get The Feeling That The Twentieth Century Is A Vast, Unconscionable Mistake.