“A boy who once wiped his ass with poison ivy probably doesn't belong in a smart people's club.”

“God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you.”

“In North Carolina, I stopped to gas up at a Humble Oil station, then walked around the corner to use the toilet. There were two doors and three signs. MEN was neatly stenciled over one door, LADIES over the other. The third sign was an arrow on a stick. It pointed toward the brush-covered slope behind the station. It said COLORED. Curious, I walked down the path, being careful to sidle at a couple of points where the oily, green-shading-to-maroon leaves of poison ivy were unmistakable... There was no facility. What I found at the end of the path was a narrow stream with a board laid across it on a couple of crumbling concrete posts... If I ever give you the idea that 1958's all Andy-n-Opie, remember the path, okay? The one lined with poison ivy. And the board over the stream.”

“I'm one of those people who doesn't really know what he thinks until he writes it down.”

“The woman who preaches has poison religion. Let the respectable ones go”

“His kid brother had been smart enough to make something of himself in the big world; Ollie himself might have been smart enough to stay ahead of the bank loans and the credit cards, but not much more.”

“sure, we need the gypsies. we always have. because if you don't have someone to run out of town once in a while, how are you going to know you yourself belong there?”