“I have had to learn the simplest thingslast. Which made for difficulties.”

“Literary history and the present are dark with silences . . . I have had special need to learn all I could of this over the years, myself so nearly remaining mute and having to let writing die over and over again in me. These are not natural silences--what Keats called agonie ennuyeuse (the tedious agony)--that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural: the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot.”

“If only these walls could talk…the world would know just how hard it is to tell the truth in a story in which everyone’s a liar.”

“You should have dragged my butt out of bed.""Your butt's too big to drag," Taylor said.Hayley sat on the floor, facing her sister. "That means yours is too. We have the same butt, remember?""Don't remind me," Taylor said. "I see it every time you walk in front of me.”

“He always told his girl, "If only these walls could talk... the world would know just how hard it is to tell the truth in a story in which everyone's a liar."But the walls didn't talk.”

“The way I see it, you have to take every chance you get because there may not be another one. You have to learn from your mistakes because nobody's perfect. You have to laugh, love & live every day as if it's your last.”

“You poke at evil with a stick," Valerie had said, offering chilling advice they'd never forget. "Never use your fingers.”