The first thing was to get down to Addie Richardson's henhouse, and that was a goodish way, four or five miles. She found herself wondering if the Lord was going to send her an eagle to fly her those four miles, or send Elijah in his fiery chariot to give her a lift. Blasphemy," she told herself complacently. "The Lord provides strength, not taxicabs.

...book-buyers aren't attracted, by and large, by the literary merits of a novel: book-buyers want a good story...something that will first fascinate them, then pull them in and keep them turning the pages.

What can be done when you’re eleven can often never be done again.

This was the Darker Life, where every truth was written backward.

The sandwich he made was bologna and cheese, his favorite. All the sandwiches he made were his favorites; that was one of the advantages of being single.

It was the kiss by which all the others of his life would be judged and found wanting.

And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.