Carson McCullers

Love is a joint experience between two persons—but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto.

The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.

"All we can do is go around telling the truth."

If you walk along the main street on an August afternoon there is nothing whatsoever to do.

"It is far better for the profits of our purse to be taken from us than to be robbed of the riches of our minds and souls."

Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.

And how can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?