“Break a promise to the dead and they'll haunt you, Ada says. Keep the promise and they'll haunt you just the same.”

“I know it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you.”

“Weaver always says freedom is like Sloan's Liniment, always promising more than it delivers.”

“I love you, too... I won't ever leave you again. I promise. I kept that promise. For love him I did. For nearly two years I spent almost every waking hour with him. Until he was taken from me. But I never left him. And I never will.”

“Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.”

“Go round cringing like a dog, Matt," he said, "and folks will treat you like one. Stand up like a man, and they'll treat you like a man." That was fine for Weaver, but I wondered sometimes, How exactly do you stand up like a man when you're a girl?”

“You can't argue with the dead, no matter what you say, they always have the last word.”