“He would never abandon her, never leave a gaping hole, and even if he died someday, he was preserved like a lab specimen from all the alcohol he imbibed, so he wouldn't look or act much different.”

“I never want to love someone like that,not even him,so much that there would be no room left for myself,so much that I wouldn't be able to survive if he left me.”

“She wanted that lifetime. She would never leave him,and even better, he would never let her go.”

“He never denied it. He never did anything. He never acted like either a nigger or a white man. That was it. That was what made the folks so mad.”

“He is afraid, as suddenly he knows that he was afraid all along, that if he felt her body so close to him he would never let her go.”

“Ever since Barry's funeral, Gavin had dwelled, with a sense of deep inadequacy, on the comparatively small gap that he was sure he would leave behind in his community, should he die. Looking at Mary, he wondered whether it would not be better to leave a huge hole in one person's heart.”