“Losing Abby wasn't a story I remembered from early childhood--it was in my face, debilitating me like a sickness, robbing me of my senses and physically, excruciatingly painful. My mother's words echoed in my ear. Abby was the girl I had to fight for, and I went down fighting. None of it was ever going to be enough.”

“America smiled at me and wiped my face. “You are such a pain in the ass, Abby. God, I love you!”

“If heartache was a physical pain I could face, I could faceBut your hurting me from inside of my headAnd I can't take it, I can't take itI'm going to lose my mind”

“I like a little fight in my girls."She grinned at him,causing blood to dribble down her chin."Then you're going to love me.”

“The story of my own childhood is a complicated sentence that I am always trying to finish, to finish and put behind me. It resists finishing, and partly this is because words are not enough; my early world was synaesthesic, and I am haunted by the ghosts of my own sense impressions, which re-emerge when I try to write, and shiver between the lines.”

“All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.”