V. Quote

The highway of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.

If we are lucky enough, as I am, to be from time to time in quite close contact with young people, they can sometimes make it easier to hang on to this notion when they function, as every person does...

What can we expect from an empty shell Where many hearts of pearl once beat to dwell Waves fail to break hard layer's bond of loveWailing shore sends memoir to the sky above

I like how writing can take you off for a jaunt in your head and then set you back down in the chair where you've been all along.

I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)

Like Sylvia Plath, Natalie Jeanne Champagne invites you so close to the pain and agony of her life of mental illness and addiction, which leaves you gasping from shock and laughing moments later: this...

The Grim Reaper isn't grim at all; he's a life-saver. He isn't grim because he isn't anything. . . . he is nothing. And nothing is a hell of a lot better than anything. So long, boys.

I was just four when a hired teenage field hand attempted to molest me. Miraculously, I got away, and I told my dad. My father made three important choices that day: He listened to me, he believed me,...

If I can only write my memoir once, how do I edit it?

Sometimes you have to travel back in time, skirting the obstacles, in order to love someone.