“Statues are too much like dolls, and dolls are creepy. You keep expecting them to blink. And the ones that smile, like this?" Eve kept her lips tight together and she curved them up. "You know they've got teeth in there. Big, sharp, shiny teeth."I didn't. But now I've got to worry about it.”

“You're like a doll I had when I was a kid. She was all stiched together and her head kept falling off, but I loved that doll. That's what you look like. Like somebody just loved you to death.”

“I want to live. I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them, I sayDo what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.”

“The doll, Dallas. You know, Barbie doll. Jeez, didn't you ever have dollies?""Dolls are like small dead people. I have enough dead people, thanks.”

“She's got those big black eyes with plenty shiny white in them that makes them shine like brand new money and she knows what God gave women eyelashes for, too. Her hair is not what you might call straight. It's negro hair, but it's got a kind of white flavor. Like the piece of string out of a ham. It's not ham at all, but it's been around ham and got the flavor.”

“I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them.”