“Mom says it's good luck if a ladybug lands on you. But club members do not think that is scientifically accurate.”

“It's just hard now because... you're jealous. But your heart is so generous and warm, it will melt the bad feelings away." I am 100 percent positive that my mom is the wisest mother in the world.”

“...what they have to say about themselves makes me think that there is a lot of ill-directed good in them.”

“...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.”

“[Writing about her address to a ladies club]: The heart of my message to them was that they would all fry in Hell if they didn't quit reading trash.”

“I'm a member and preacher to that church where the blind don't see and the lame don't walk and what's dead stays that way.”

“Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.”