But we are alone, darling child, terribly, isolated each from the other; so fierce is the world's ridicule we cannot speak or show our tenderness; for us, death is stronger than life, it pulls like a wind through the dark, all our cries burlesqued in joyless laughter; and with the garbage of loneliness stuffed down us until our guts burst bleeding green, we go screaming round the world, dying in our rented rooms, nightmare hotels, eternal homes of the transient heart.

I'm scarcely an enfant!

Oh Jesus God we did belong to each other. He was mine.

The instant she saw the letter she squinted her eyes and bent her lips in a tough tiny smile that advanced her age immeasurably. "Darling," she instructed me, "would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.

When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely.

Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that's one definition of a lady.

I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.