Don’t Worry About What People Think, Because

But I Hope I Will Never Have A Life That Is Not Surrounded By Books, By Books That Are Bound In Paper And Cloth And Glue, Such Perishable Things For Ideas Have Lasted Thousands Of Years . . . I Hope I Am Always Walled In By The Very Weight And Breadth And Clumsy, Inefficient, Antiquated Bulk Of Them, Hope That I Spend My Last Days On This Earth Arranging And Rearranging Them On Thrones Of Good, Honest Pine, Oak, And Mahogany, Because I Just Like To Look At Their Covers, And Dream Of The Promise Of The Great Stories Inside.

Don’t Worry About What People Think, Because Once It’s All Over The People Who Love You Will Make You What They Want You To Be, And The People Who Don’t Love You Will, Too.

It Is A Common Condition Of Being Poor...you Are Always Afraid That The Good Things In Your Life Are Temporary, That Someone Can Take Them Away, Because You Have No Power Beyond Your Own Brute Strength To Stop Them.

I Began Reading Harper Lee's Novel In The Skimpy Shade Of A Pine Outside My Grandmother's House, Fat Beagles Pressing Against Me, Begging For Attention, Ignored. At Dark, I Kept Reading, First On The Couch, A Bologna Sandwich In One Hand, Then In My Bed, By The Light Of A 60-watt Bulb Hanging From The Ceiling On An Orange Drop Cord. When My Mother Came In From Her Job As A Maid And Unplugged My Chandelier, I Replayed The Story In My Head Until It Was Crowded Out By Dreams. I Woke The Next Morning, Smelling Biscuits, And Reached For The Book Again.

I Made Some Friends For Life, The Way I Usually Make Them. Any Jackass Can Be Pleasant Company, But If People Help You When You're At Your Worst, That's A Friend.