“She never stumbles, she's got no place to fall. She's nobody's child, the law can't touch her at all.”

“Her feelings she hidesHer dreams she can't findShe's losing her mindShe's falling behindShe can't find her placeShe's losing her faithShe's falling from graceShe's all over the place”

“She feels lonely all the time, she wants to be accepted, by anyone, on any terms, but she feels apart. As if nobody who really got to know her would trust her.”

“With an exceedingly contemptuous expression, Idabel drew up to her full height. "Son," she said, and spit between her fingers, "what you've got in your britches is no news to me, and no concern of mine: hell, I've fooled around with nobody but boys since first grade. I never think like I'm a girl; you've got to remember that, or we can't never be friends." For all its bravado, she made this declaration with a special and compelling innocence; and when she knocked one fist against the other, as, frowning, she did now, and said: "I want so much to be a boy: I would be a sailor, I would..." the quality of her futility was touching.”

“She would never change, but one day at the touch of a fingertip she would fall to dust.”

“It's all her fancy: she never executes nobody, you know.”