“But I think that what you'll discover more and more as you get older is that most people aren't thinking about you at all.”

“I respect every way in which you are a troublemaker, now get up and do what your mother says.”

“I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.”

“But you can't ever live in the place you dream about, the town you long for. ...the moment you become conscious of your desire, and then fulfill it, it evaporates.”

“Mooreland is a long way to go to not to be anywhere when you get there.”

“The pigs were pushing their noses through the slats in the truck bed, which made Langston so unaccountably sad she thought she would have to sit down on the sidewalk. How is it possible, she thought, that a person can drive a thinking, feeling, animal to slaughter and not become less than an animal himself? And what were the pigs searching for, after all, but air and freedom?”

“Honey, I know you like to take a drink, and that's all right, but be forewarned that I ain't your maid and I ain't your punching-bag, and if you ever raise your hand to me you'd best kill me. Because otherwise I'll wait till you're asleep; sew you into the bed; and beat you to death with a frying pan.”