“My mother is from Cairo, Georgia. This makes everything she says sound like it went through a curling iron. ”

“Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.”

“Another tug and a yank at my chestnut curls and she snarls at me, “You are so much like her.”This is something my mother often says and never explains. Though it is a great mystery to me it is also a blessing, for she always hurries from the room after saying it.”

“My mother tries to explain that I need support and that I'm just going through a period of adjustment. "Like puberty," she says.”

“My cousin Georgia says that boys are like gazelles. She says the get alarmed when they get close to girls. And they have to leap off into the woods like gazelles in trousers. Or have I just made that up?”

“They did not talk much while they ate, other than for Ada to say that the Georgia boy did not seem like much of a one as far as men went. Ruby said she found him not particularly worse than the general order of men, which is to say that he would greatly benefit from having someone's foot in his back every waking minute.”