"Lettie shrugged. “Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody."

"I pulled the homemade jail knife out that I had in my hand, Porkie pulled out the very sharp lockback knife that he had concealed up his sleeve. We told the warden and nurse to sit on the floor, and if they did as we told them then no one would get hurt."

"Most kids don't give a hoot in hell for brains; they go a penny a pound, and the kid with the high I.Q. Who can't play baseball or at least come in third in the local circle jerk is everybody's fifth wheel."

"Life is an extraordinary gift some people appear not to appreciate. In every breath and scent, every touch and sight we are gifted by new experience and the chance to feel the richness of experience. Every sound we hear, from the song of a bird to the harshness of an angry voice, is a miracle."

"That he will haunt the footsteps of his enemy after death is the one revenge which a dying man can promise himself; and if men had power thus to avenge themselves the earth would be peopled with phantoms. ('Eveline's Visitant')."

"Time falls on us, like rain, it falls like rain until we drown in it, and sometimes, it's like the drains overflow, and time just - pools up, it seeps, it gathers in the corners."

"I think it's really important that I'm not the only model in the world that goes through personal problems. People forget that we're human. We don't get to call in sick. You have to go and put on a smile. Every single day is a first impression, so you can't have a bummed-out day."

"The limitless, lowering sky, the long stretches of motionless empty prairie, the silence, complete right down to the absence of birdsong -- who knows what decides a man to leave most of his words unspoken?"