Im a Southerner - I never take satisfaction in touching a nerve.

I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, down inside, the woman she gone grow up to be. She is tall and straight. She is proud. She got a better haircut. And she is remembering the words I put in her head. Remembering as a full-grown woman.

And you call yourself a Christian,' were Hilly's words to me and I thought, God. When did I ever do that?

I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.

And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

That's the way prayer do. It's like electricity, it keeps things going.

This woman talk like she from so deep in the country she got corn growing in her shoes.