“Everyone under the age of sixty called it the War Between the States, while everyone over sixty called it the War of Northern Aggression, as if somehow the North had baited the South into war over a bad bale of cotton.Read”

“It wasn't that he was a Confederate. Everyone in Gatlin County was related to the wrong side in the War Between the States. We were used to that by now. It was like being born in Germany after World War II, being from Japan after Pearl Harbor, or America after Hiroshima. History was a bitch sometimes. You couldn't change where you were from. But still, you didn't have to stay there. You didn't have to stay stuck in the past, like the ladies in DAR, or the Gatlin Historical Society, or the Sisters. And you didn't have to accept that things had to be the way they were, like Lena. Ethan Carter Wate hadn't, and I couldn't, either.”

“Everyone called it Burger Math because all you learned was how to make change.”

“...south of Somewhere and north of Nowhere...”

“Wait, I got it. We, uh, won the battle and lost the war, or was it the other way around? 'Cause around here, it's hard to tell sometimes.”

“I walked over and picked up one of the jugs. "What's this? Some kind of Caster disinfectant?"Lena took it out of my hand and lined it up with the others. "Yeah, it's called bleach.”

“Until then, you can do what everyone else your age does. Listen to music. Watch the television. Just keep your nose away from those books.”