“I play songs that have only the pattern of my self in them and you hum along suporting me. You are the companion to myself. The mirror with my mother'e eyes.”

“I have a hunger,for more than food.I have a hungerbigger than Joyce City.I want tongues to tie, and eyes to shine at melike they do at Mad Dog Craddock.Course they never will,not with my hands all scarred up,looking like the earth itself,all parched and rough and cracking,but if I played right enough,maybe they would see past my hands.Maybe they could feel at ease with me again,and maybe then,I could feel at east with myself.”

“each day after class lets out,each morning before it begins, i sit at the school piano and make my hands work. in spite of the pain, in spite of the stiffness and scars. i make my hands play piano.i have practiced my best piece over and over till my arms throb.”

“ApplesMa's apple blossomshave turned to hard green balls.To eat them now,so tart,would turn my mouth inside out, would make my stomach groan.But in just a couple months,after the baby is born,those apples will be ready and we'll make piesand sauceand puddingand dumplingsand cakeand cobblerand have just plain apples to take to schooland slice with my pocket knifeand eat one juicy piece at a timeuntil my mouth is cleanand freshand my breath is nothing but apple.June 1934”

“As long as you live, it is never too late to make amends. Take my advice, child. Don't waste your precious life with regrets and sorrow. Find a way to make right what was wrong, and then move on.”

“Anyway, this time I caught her in the slow stirring of biscuits, her mind on other things, but anyhow, she was distracted enough, I was determined enough,this time I got just what I wanted. Permission to play at the Palace.”

“Daddy named me Billie Jo. He wanted a boy. Instead, he got a long legged girl with a wide mouth with cheekbones like bicycle handles. He got a redheaded, freckle faced, narrow-hipped girl with a fondness for apples and hunger for playing fierce piano.”