There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

But let us say he was (guilty). Let us for a moment say he was (guilty). What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.

Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

In all my stories and novels, no one ever escapes Louisiana. Maybe that is because my soul never left Louisiana, although my body did go to California.

"What for?" I said. "What for, Tante Lou? He treated me the same way he treated her. He wants me to feel guilty, just as he wants her to feel guilty. Well, I'm not feeling guilty, Tante Lou. I didn't put him there. I do everything I know how to do to keep people like him from going there. He's not going to make me feel guilty."