Once I came across two ideographs for the word “love.” The first contained the root words “heart” and “hand” and “action”-love as hands and heart in action together. The other ideograph, for “passionate love,” was formed of “heart,” “to tell,” and “a long thread.

Elsewhere, people like Aunt Emily clack away at their typewriters, spreading words like buckshot, aiming at the shadow in the sky.

Some people,” Aunt Emily answered sharply, “are so busy seeing all sides of every issue that they neutralize concern and prevent necessary action. There’s no strength in seeing all sides unless you can act where real measurable injustice exists. A lot of academic talk just immobilizes the oppressed and maintains oppressors in their positions of power.

Poetry is a kind of gasp, and there it is, a spark on the page. Fiction, on the other hand, is like swamp fire.

Language to me is a tool a very clumsy tool. And words are garden tools with which to till the soil of one’s life.

From my years of teaching I know it’s the children who say nothing who are in trouble more than the ones who complain.

People who talk a lot about their victimization make me uncomfortable. It’s as if they use their suffering as weapons or badges of some kind.

Fiction, on the other hand, is like swamp fire.

In a time like this, let us trust in God even more. To trust when life is easy is no trust.

Some people," Aunt Emily answered sharply, "are so busy seeing all sides of every issue that they neutralize concern and prevent necessary action. There's no strength in seeing all sides unless you can act where real measurable injustice exists. A lot of academic talk just immobilizes the oppressed and maintains oppressors in their positions of power.