“Our Lady of Cheribim Chit-Chat.”

“In the crook of the crescent moon sits the Holy Lady, with strong muscles and a merciful heart. She kicks her her splendid legs like the moon is her swing and the sky, her front porch. She waves down at Sidda like she has just spotted an old buddy.”

“Books are living things with blood and bones, and it breaks our heart when people dissect them.”

“[T]he right way to pray is not to beg, but to picture good things, to banish all bad things from our mind.”

“She walks barefoot into the humid night, moonlight on her freckled shoulders. Near a huge, live oak tree on the edge of her father's cotton fields, Sidda looks up into the sky. In the crook of the crescent moon sits the Holy Lady, with strong muscles and a merciful heart. She kicks her splendid legs like the moon is her swing and the sky, her front porch. She waves down at Sidda like she has just spotted an old buddy.Sidda stands in the moonlight and lets the Blessed Mother love every hair on her six-year-old head. Tenderness flows down from the moon and up from the earth. For one fleeting, luminous moment, Sidda Walker knows there has never been a time when she has not been loved.”

“It was the kind... of Southern women... who believe... that it is impossible to arrive in a new place without a pair of shoes to match every possible change of clothes.”

“...you do not have too many boogeymen for me. You have just the right number.”