“A cowboy doesn't ask for much, that's my observation. A flashy ride, a pretty girl, momentary glory...”

“We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly,and bitterly wept as we bore him along.For we all loved our comrade so brave, young and handsome, we all loved our comrade although he'd done wrong."The Cowboy's Lament”

“Nothing could quiet a happy crowd of kids like Mr. Holgren's unannounced appearance -- he loved superintending; he was made for it. So when he marched in that morning with a determined look on his face, we froze. Boys and girls recognize sinister as handily as dogs do. Here it was. My best guess now is he'd got it in his head to try "relating" to us -- but when he produced a paper pilgrim's hat from behind his back and put it on his own head, I think we all nearly bolted.”

“You can’t explain grace, anyway, especially when it arrives almost despite yourself. I didn’t even ask for it, yet somehow it breached and began to work.”

“We and the world, my children, will always be at war.Retreat is impossible.Arm yourselves.”

“But I shook my head. I just couldn't go with him. Nor could I tell him it wasn't his public mistreatment that stole my breath and blocked my tongue; it was something too mean to explain. It was the fact that Chester the Fester, the worst man I'd ever seen, even worse in his way than Israel Finch, got a whole new face to look out of and didn't even know to be grateful; while I, my father's son, had to be still and resolute and breathe steam to stay alive.”

“And now, from beneath the audible, came a low reverberation. It came up through the soles of my feet. I stood still while it hummed upward bone by bone. There is no adequate simile. The pulse of the country worked through my body until I recognized it as music. As language. And the language ran everywhere inside me, like blood; and for feeling, it was as if through time I had been made of earth or mud or other insensate matter. Like a rhyme learned in antiquity a verse blazed to mind: O be quick, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet! And sure enough my soul leapt dancing inside my chest, and my feet sprang up and sped me forward, and the sense came to me of undergoing creation, as the land and the trees and the beasts of the orchard had done some long time before. And the pulse of the country came around me, as of voices lifted at great distance, and moved through me as I ran until the words came clear, and I sang with them a beautiful and curious chant.”