“Sometimes we must do things, plenty scared or not. To be able to say afterward,`I was plenty scared`makes a man a bigger man, not a smaller one.”

“You...you loved her, didn't you, Pa?”Theodore sighed, and kept staring at the horses' rumps. “Oh, I loved her, all right,” he answered. “A man sometimes can't help lovin' a woman, even if she's the wrong one.”

“Will asked Miss Beasley what kind of man Glendon Dinsmore had been and she answered, as different from you as air is from earth. He asked which he was, air or earth? She laughed and said, "That's what I like about you—you really don't know.”

“Yessir, it's a hard taskmaster, that guilt. I say, feel it, and wriggle a little bit if you have to, but then put it away. Get on with what you can change.”

“She writhed between him and the door and he moved his mouth to her ear, whispering hoarsely, "Abbie, I'm going to take you to that bed and make love to you like you never imagined you'd be made love to again.”

“Lizzy, Will thought. Lizzy P. 'You n me gonna be buddies, darlin'. He stretched one hand to Elly's hair, and circled Donald Wade's rump with his free arm and touched Thomas's leg, on the far side of Elly. And he smiled at Lizzy P. and thought, Heaven's got nothin' on being the husband of Eleanor Dinsmore.”

“She's had so little love, Jesse thought, I will drown her in it for the rest of her life.”