“People would say bad things about you, because it is the only way their insignificant self can feel better than you.”

“People will always try to stealyour power. When you do well, they’ll say it’s only because you’re rich and your parents are big shots. People who care about you will try to stealyour power, too, but they’ll go about it differently. When you fail at something, they’ll try to make you feel better by saying that nobody’s good ateverything, and you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. They might tell you not to feel bad about screwing up a math test because math’s hard for girls.Or they’ll say you shouldn’t worry so much about injustice in the world because you’re only one person. And even though they mean well, they’ll bemaking you less than what you can be.”

“It's bad enough to feel insignificant, but it's unbearable to have it grained into your soul that you will never, can never, be anything but insignificant…”

“You can say a lot of bad things about Alabama, but you can't say that Alabamans as a people are duly afraid of deep fryers.”

“It's better to write about things you feel than about things you know about.”

“Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, because if it was the other way around good people would become bad and bad people would become good.”