“I thought about the difference between a mama's girl and a daddy's girl. I decided that a daughter who belongs to her daddy expects gifts, while a daughter who belongs to her mama expects a lot more. Not from her mama. From herself.”

“I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy is not win. I'm winning. I'm drinking hot chocolate in the Village wif girls--all kind who love me. How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy kknow me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. Must be what they already had in they pocket. ”

“Now this girl was about twenty-one years old. A sweet little coed. Spends a night with a married man. Goes home the next day and tells her mama and daddy. Don’t ask me why. Maybe just to rub their faces in it. They decide she needs a lesson. Whole family drives out into the desert, right out to that spot we just passed. All three of them plus the girl’s pet dog. Papa tells the girl to dig a shallow grave. Mama gets down on her hands and knees and holds the dog by the collar. When the girl is all through digging, papa gives her a .22 caliber revolver and tells her to shoot the dog. A real touching family scene. Make a good calendar for some religious group to give away. The girl puts the weapon to her temple and kills herself. Now isn’t that a heartwarming story? Restores my faith in just about everything.”

“I'm half good and I'm half bad. My mama is a very good girl and my daddy is a very bad boy. And I guess that leaves me somewhere sort of...here.”

“To the newcomer to the south, hearing that a coworker plans a weekend visit to 'mama and them's' (the correct plural possessive, don'tchaknow), might make him think that mama has been left alone either throught an act of scoundreldom involving the town's resident hoochie-mama (an altogether different kind of mama) or Daddy's untimely demise.”

“Leah looked at her parents, lost in their own fantasies, and decided that the three of them were a pretty pathetic family - but she wasn't sure who was more pathetic: the dateless girl spending the night of the big dance by herself in her bedroom, or the parents who foolishly believed a boy would arrive on their doorstep with flowers, a limo, and a promise to rescue their daughter from her solitude.”