“Reading is fuel for the brain. Writing is fuel for the spirit...”

“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”

“The mermaid is an archetypal image that represents a woman who is at ease in the great waters of life, the waters of emotion and sexuality. She shows us how to embrace our instinctive sexuality and sensuality so that we can affirm the essence of our feminine nature, the wisdom of our bodies, and the playfulness of our spirits. She symbolizes our connection with our deepest instinctive feelings, our wild and untamed animal nature that exists below the surface of outward personalities. She is able to respond to her mysterious sexual impulses without abandoning her more human, conscious side. What happened to the girls who dreamed of being mermaids?”

“I never got to take you to the prom. You went with Henry Featherstone. And you wore a peach-colored dress.”“How could you possibly know that?” Callie asked.“Because I saw you walk in with him.”“You didn’t know I was alive in high school,” Callie scoffed.“You had algebra first period, across the hall from my trig class. You ate a sack lunch with the same three girls every day, Lou Ann, Becky and Robbie Sue. You spent your free period in the library reading Hemingway and Steinbeck. And you went straight home after school without doing any extracurricular activities, except on Thursdays. For some reason, on Thursdays you showed up at football practice. Why was that, Callie?”Callie was confused. How could Trace possibly know so much about her activities in high school? They hadn’t even met until she showed up at the University of Texas campus. “I don’t understand,” she said.“You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come to football practice on Thursdays?”“Because that was the day I did the grocery shopping, and I didn’t have to be home until later.”“Why were you there, Calllie?”Callie stared into his eyes, afraid to admit the truth. But what difference could it possibly make now? She swallowed hard and said, “I was there to see you.”He gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I hoped that was it. But I never knew for sure.”Callie’s brow furrowed. “You wanted me to notice you?”“I noticed you. Couldn’t you feel my eyes on you? Didn’t you ever sense the force of my boyish lust? I had it bad for you my senior year. I couldn’t walk past you in the hall without needing to hold my books in my lap when I saw down in the next class.”“You’re kidding, right?”Trace chuckled. “I wish I were.”“Then it wasn’t an accident, our meeting like that at UT?”“That’s the miracle of it,” Trace said. “It was entirely by accident. Fate. Kisma. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.”

“A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry.”

“I do know this. It's the things we run from that hurt us the most." –Brad Sturdevant”

“Everyone gets to the stage, or should get to it, where it's more important to stop doing things than to keep on trying to do them.”