“The tide was a poem that only time could create, and I watched it stream and brim and makes its steady dash homeward, to the ocean.”

“I had come to know the singular power of a river advancing toward the open sea and the power of tides regulating that advance. . . . Because I had seen this for the first time over the year, I could not be intimidated by guys who wore expensive shoes and flashy ties. Piedmont could fire me, bawl me out, abuse me, put it on my record that I was an incorrigible son of a bitch, make sure I never taught in South Carolina again, or cut off my teacher's pension. That was all he could do. His power was economic and emotional, not spiritual or supernatural. ”

“I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.”

“I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty, but that does not mean I had to like that trend or go along with it. I fight against these movements with every book I write.”

“The only way I could endure being a coward was if I was the only one who knew it.”

“Man wonders but God decidesWhen to kill the Prince of Tides.”

“Time moves funny and it's hard to pin down. Occasionally, time offers you a hundred opportunities to do the right thing. Sometimes, it gives you only one chance.”