Babies Change Things, Open Doors You Thought

If I Could Have Found What I Needed At Thirteen, I Would Not Have Lost So Much Of My Life Chasing Vindication Or Death. Give Some Child, Some Thirteen-year Old, The Hope Of The Remade Life. Tell The Truth. Write The Story That You Were Always Afraid To Tell. I Swear To You There Is Magic In It.

The Horror Of Class Stratification, Racism, And Prejudice Is That Some People Begin To Believe That The Security Of Their Families And Communities Depends On The Oppression Of Others, That For Some To Have Good Lives There Must Be Others Whose Lives Are Truncated And Brutal.

The Worst Thing In The World Was The Way I Felt When I Wanted Us To Be Like The Families In The Books In The Library, When I Just Wanted Daddy Glen To Love Me Like The Father In Robinson Crusoe. (209)

I Want Hard Stories, I Demand Them From Myself. Hard Stories Are Worth The Difficulty. It Seems To Me The Only Way I Have Forgiven Anything, Understood Anything, Is Through That Process Of Opening Up To My Own Terror And Pain And Reexamining It, Re-creating It In The Story, And Making It Something Different, Making It Meaningful - Even If The Meaning Is Only In The Act Of The Telling.

Fiction Is A Piece Of Truth That Turns Lies To Meaning.