“She breathed in the vast world of suffering and pure, dark love, and as she did, a well of compassion began to flow in her.”

“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.”

“As Vivi drove, it seemed that not only the Ya-Ya's bodies but the earth and sky were sweating. The very air they breathed was almost a juice. Moonlight spilled down into the convertible, onto the four friends' shoulders and knees and on the tops of their heads, so that their hair seemed to have little sparks shooting off it. Vivi had no idea at all where she was headed, but she knew that whatever direction she went, her friends would go with her.”

“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.”

“Connor: [about Sidda and Connor's wedding] Vivi, it's taken years to nail down a date. She's always said, "What's the rush, when things are so good?" I don't know what the hell she's so afraid of - it's like she's always waiting for the bottom to drop out. Vivi: You know why she thinks that, don't ya, honey? Because it did. It always did.”

“She longed for porch friendship, for the sticky, hot sensation of familiar female legs thrown over hers in companionship. She pined for the girliness of it all, the unplanned, improvisational laziness. She wanted to soak the words 'time management' out of her lexicon. She wanted to hand over, to yield, to let herself float down the unchartered beautiful fertile musky swamp of life, where creativity and eroticism and deep intelligence dwell.”

“Sidda was tired of being vigilant, alert, sharp. She longed for porch friendship, for the sticky, hot sensation of familiar female legs thrown over hers in companionship. She pined for the girlness of it all, the unplanned, improvisational laziness. She wanted to soak the words "time management" out of her lexicon. She wanted to hand over, to yield, to let herself float down into the uncharted beautiful fertile musky swamp of life, where creativity and eroticism and deep intelligence dwell.”