If I’d have wanted civilization I’d have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living,
I haven’t planned, very much, July said honestly. Seems like every time I make a plan something happens to change it.
But just let me tell you something, son, a woman's love is like the morning dew, it's just as apt to settle on a horse turd as it is on a rose. So you better just get over it.
All his work, and it hadn’t saved anyone, or slowed the moment of their going by a minute.
What’s that? Mr. Bynum said. He leaned over me, fists doubled up. Vagina, fallopian tube, penis, scrotum, I said. It took them both aback. I meant for it to. That ain’t what you said, Mr. Bynum said....
Trees had been so common that it was a shock to ride out on the plains and discover that there was a part of earth where there weren’t any.
She had always loved to tease and considered it an irony of her life that she was often drawn to men who didn’t recognize teasing even when she was inflicting it on them.
Part of the trick of being happy is a refusal to allow oneself to become too nostalgic for the heady triumphs of one's youth.
It was inconsiderate, she thought, how blandly people mentioned the future in the sick rooms. Phrases like next summer were always popping out; people made such assumptions about their own continuity.
I figured out something, Lorie, he said. I figured out why you and me get along so well. You know more than you say and I say more than I know. That means we’re a perfect match, as long as we don’t ha...
Every time Roscoe tried to think back along the line of events that had led to his being in a place where there was no trees to lean against, he strayed off the line and soon got all tangled up in his...
Dish said no more, and Augustus decided not to tease him. Occasionally the very youngness of the young moved him to charity- they had no sense of the swiftness of life, nor of its limits. The years wo...
Best to help such boys have their moment of fun, before life’s torments snatched them.
Augustus said. You can’t have this leg, and if you’re thinking of overpowering me you have to calculate on losing about half the town. I can shoot straight when I’m drunk, too. I only want to save you...
Are you expecting a war party? Call asked the judge. You seem to be thoroughly armed. I expect perdition, always have, the judge replied. I keep this building at my back, and several guns handy, in ca...
A man that will go along with six killings is making his escape a little slow.
She remembered them kindly, for there was a sweetness in boys that didn't last long, once they became men.
You should be proud of her. She cracked the wall, and I never thought I'd live to see it cracked.What are you talking about? I said. What wall?The one you built around you, Jeannie said. Don't say it...
Wrong theory, Augustus said. Talk’s the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death.
When the lightning struck, the whole prairie would be bathed for a second in white light.