“Little Willie, full of glee,Put radium in grandma's tea.Now he thinks it quite a larkTo see her shining in the dark.”

“It is Never Too Late to Mend."Since it can never be too lateTo change your life, or else renew it, Let the unpleasant process waitUntil you are compelled to do it.The State provides (and gratis too) Establishments for such as you.Remember this, and pluck up heart, That, be you publican or parson,Your ev'ry art must have a start,From petty larceny to arson;And even in the burglar's trade,The cracksman is not born, but made.So, if in your career of crime,You fail to carry out some "coup",Then try again a second time,And yet again, until you do;And don't despair, or fear the worst, Because you get found out at first.Perhaps the battle will not go,On all occasions, to the strongest;You may be fairly certain tho'That He Laughs Last who laughs the Longest.So keep a good reserve of laughter,Which may be found of use hereafter.Believe me that, howe'er well meant,A Good Resolve is always brief;Don't let your precious hours be spentIn turning over a new leaf.Such leaves, like Nature's, soon decay,And then are only in the way.The Road to—-well, a certain spot,(A Road of very fair dimensions),Has, so the proverb tells us, gotA parquet-floor of Good Intentions.Take care, in your desire to please, You do not add a brick to these.For there may come a moment whenYou shall be mended willy-nilly,With many more misguided men,Whose skill is undermined with skilly. Till then procrastinate, my friend;"It Never is Too Late to Mend!”

“This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.”

“Sometimes, when the sun is shining, it's daytime,"Robert snapped."And sometimes, when it's dark, it's because there's an eclispe,"Leslie snapped back.”

“In a world full of war, famine, oppression, deceit, monotony, what—apart from the eternal innocence of animals—offers an image of hope? A mother with a newborn child in her arms? The child may end up as a murderer or a murder victim, so that the hopeful image is a prefiguration of a pietà: a mother with her newly dead child on her lap.”

“It was not merely that his brother was dead. His brain, too young to realize the full paradox, wondered with an obscure self- pity why it was that the pulse of his brother's fear went on and on, when Francis was now where he had always been told there was no more terror and no more--darkness.”

“She felt the snake between her breasts, felt him there, and loved him there, coiled, the deep tumescent S held rigid, ready to strike. She loved the way the snake looked sewn onto her V-neck letter sweater, his hard diamondback pattern shining in the sun. It was unseasonably hot, almost sixty degrees, for early November in Mystic, Georgia, and she could smell the light musk of her own sweat. She liked the sweat, liked the way it felt, slick as oil, in all the joints of her body, her bones, in the firm sliding muscles, tensed and locked now, ready to spring--to strike--when the band behind her fired up the school song: "Fight On Deadly Rattlers of Old Mystic High.”