A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.

It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent man.

An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.

When they fall in love with a city, it is for forever and it is like forever.

I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more

Her mind traveled crooked streets and aimless goat paths, arriving sometimes at profundity, other times at the revelations of a three-year-old. Throughout this fresh, if common, pursuit of knowledge, one conviction crowned her efforts: ...she knew there was nothing to fear.

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