“The only way I could endure being a coward was if I was the only one who knew it.”

“He was one of those rare men who are capable of being fully in love only once in their lives.”

“I do not have any other way of saying it. I think it happens but once and only to the very young when it feels like your skin could ignite at the mere touch of another person. You get to love like that but once.”

“Know this. I think you could be special if you only thought there was anything special about yourself.”

“I was the only person in the world who thought it was a military duty to appear to be in a good mood.”

“The tide was a poem that only time could create, and I watched it stream and brim and makes its steady dash homeward, to the ocean.”

“She was one of those Southerners who knew from an early age that the South could never be more for them than a fragrant prison, administered by a collective of loving but treacherous relatives.”