“She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.”

“Much stronger boys in her class soon learned that it could be quite unpleasant to fight with that skinny girl. Unlike other girls in the class, she never backed down, and she would not for a second hesitate to use her fists or any weapon at hand to protect herself. She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.”

“From a purely physical standpoint she didn't have a chance, but her attitude was that death was better than capitulation.”

“And as he went about arranging and as he sat talking there seemed something false about him and out of tune.Watching him unknown she said to herself there was no stability about him. He was when he was in one mood. And now he looked paltry and insignificant. There was nothing stable about him. Her husband had more manly dignity. At any rate he did not waft about with any wind. There was something evanescent about Morel she thought something shifting and false. He would never make sure ground for any woman to stand on. She despised him rather for his shrinking together getting smaller. Her husband at least was manly and when he was beaten gave in. but this other would never own to being beaten. He would shift round and round, get smaller.”

“September could see it. She did not know what is was she saw. That is the disadvantage of being a heroine, rather than a narrator. She knew only that a red light glowed and went dark, glowed and went dark.”

“She slowly became convinced…that at the center of the universe not God but a tremendous deadness reigned. The stillness of a drunk God, passed out cold…She had learned of it in that house…where the drunks crashed…Things had happened to her there. She was neither raped nor robbed, nor did she experience God’s absence to any greater degree than other people did. She wasn’t threatened or made to harm anyone against her will. She wasn’t beaten, either, or deprived of speech or voice. It was, rather, the sad blubbering stories she heard in the house. Delphine witnessed awful things occurring to other humans. Worse than that, she was powerless to alter their fate. It would be that way all her life – disasters, falling like chairs all around her, falling so close they disarranged her hair, but not touching her.”