“Good" is what helps us or at least does not hinder. "Evil" is whatever harms us or interferes with us, according to our own selfish standards.”

“Sift each of us through the great sieve of circumstance and you have a residue, great or small as the case may be, that is the man or the woman.”

“A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.”

“Jody said, "Ma, you're shore good.""Oh, yes. When it's rations.""Well, I'd a heap ruther you was good about rations and mean about other things.""Oh, I be mean, be I?""Only about jest a very few things," he soothed her.”

“Who owns Cross Creek? The red-birds, I think, more than I, for they will have their nests even in the face of delinquent mortgages..It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed, but not bought. It may be used, but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its sesonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers, and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time..." ”

“...a pie so delicate, so luscious, that I hope to be propped up on my dying bed and fed a generous portion. Then I think that I should refuse outright to die, for life would be too good to relinquish.”

“You know what I wisht I had, Ma? A pouch like a 'possum, to tote things.--The Yearling”