You'll Never Call Him Fifi Again.

I Wasn't Afraid To Be Laughed At Or Be Loud.

The Thing That Really Struck Me When I Went To Junior High Was Class. I Grew Up On A Pretty Poor Street, But The School District I Was In Included Some Fine Neighborhoods - So I Got To Know A Couple Of The Kids From Those Places And Went To Their Houses And Experienced Such Culture Shock.

By The 6th Grade I Stopped Doing Ordinary Things In Front Of People. It Had Been Ordinary To Sing, Kids Are Singing All The Time When They Are Little, But Then Something Happens. It's Not That We Stop Singing. I Still Sang. I Just Made Sure I Was Alone When I Did It. And I Made Sure I Never Did It Accidentally. That Thing We Call 'bursting Into Song.' I Believe This Happens To Most Of Us. We Are Still Singing, But Secretly And All Alone.

If I Had Had Me For A Student I Would Have Thrown Me Out Of Class Immediately.

If You Can Stand To Wait 24 Hours Before You Decide The Fate Of What You Have Written - Either Good Or Bad - You're More Likely To See That Invisible Thing That Is Invisible For The First Few Days In Any New Writing. We Just Can't Know What All Is In A Sentence Until There Are Several Sentences To Follow It. Pages Of Writing Need More Pages In Order To Be Known, Chapters Need More Chapters.