But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.

Owing to the fact he was a mute they were able to give him all the qualities they wanted him to have.

That was the best of all. To speak the truth and be attended.

The human heart is a lonely hunter-but the search for us southerners is more anguished.

Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.

The memories of childhood have a strange shuttling quality, and areas of darkness ring the spaces of light. The memories of childhood are like clear candles in an acre of night, illuminating fixed scenes from surrounding darkness.

Listen,” F. Jasmine said. “What I’ve been trying to say is this. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each other, and touch each other, and stay together year in and year out in the same room. Yet always I am I, and you are you. And I can’t ever be anything else but me, and you can ever be anything else but you. Have you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange?