Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.

They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.