Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network.

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence.

Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me...my lonely is mine.

Who's Got Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? The Lion or the Mouse? Poppy or the Snake?

And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.