It’s impossible to explain to a Yankee what ‘tacky’ is. They simply have no word for it up north, but my God, do they ever need one.
There’s no word in the language I revere more than ‘teacher.’ My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher.
Like everything else, love’s not worth much without some action to back it up.
I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low-country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders.
I’d be a conservative if I’d never met any. They’re selfish, mean-spirited, egocentric, reactionary, and boring.
Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don’t leave out a single word.
My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.
The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life.
One can learn anything, anything at all, I thought, if provided by a gifted and passionate teacher.
The most powerful words in English are, ‘Tell me a story.’
There is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss.
Each divorce is the death of a small civilization.
I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing.
The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.
Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.
I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.
Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.
Baseball fans love numbers. They love to swirl them around their mouths like Bordeaux wine.
I’ve always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.
Except for memory, time would have no meaning at all.