I Made Some Friends For Life, The

I Don't Think There's A Difference Between Writing For A Newspaper Or Magazine And Doing A Chapter In A Book.

The Haitians, Who Knew Something About Suffering And Survival, Had A Beautiful Phrase... The Translation Is Not Perfect, But The Nut Of It Was: 'the Season Of Pain Is Never Over Until The Sky Begins To Cry.

Momma Kept A Garden, Which Sounds Romantic To People Who Have Never Held A Hoe

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.

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.