“What damn fool punches his own horse?”

“The visit hadn't lasted much longer, and Wallace never said what he'd done, but after Larry watched him go, he'd spent the rest of the night on his porch as daylight crept through the trees like am army of crafty boys.”

“Soon the Mississippi night hummed by outside his windows, bug, bird, frog, the wind on his face.”

“At some point, Alice slipped one arm and then the other into the coat's sleeves, she buttoned its buttons, starting at the top. Silas had followed her, still not seeing what an emblem of defeat, shame, loss, hopelessness, the coat was. With such gaps in his understanding, he saw very clearly how the boy he'd been had grown up to be the man he was.”

“The seat belt irked his father more than Uncle Colin's not eating meat, because, though his father never said it, Larry knew he considered seat belts cowardly.”

“Was that what childhood was? Things rushing by out a window, the trees connected by motion, going too fast for him to notice the consequences?”

“Well, sugar," she said, limping off, "don't be too hard on yourself. Now and again it's okay to let yourself off the hook."But that was the trouble, wasn't it? Letting himself off the hook had been his way of life.”