There doesn't seem like there should be an artful way to butcher a cow, but there is, and this is not it.

You know what I mean. I'm telling you I was stupid over it. I thought it was about trying so hard to survive that you didn't have the time to be a good parent. Obviously, that's not it. Because you and I, we're both...wealthy in love.

When you were born, the rivers dried up and the cattle in Rockingham County wept blood.

Panic leads to carelessness, and carelessness creates accidents.

I could just barely see the dark curve of his shoulder, and something about the shape it made, the gesture it suggested, filled me with a sort of fierce, awful affection.

My whole life, I had thought that my story was, again and again: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and he had to risk everything to keep what he loved. But really, the story was: Once upon a time, there was a boy, and his fear ate him alive.

World of words lost on the living / I take my place with the walking dead / Robbed of my voice I'm always giving / Thousands of words to this nameless dread.