"Today is the anniversary of my birth. I have twenty-eight years. This diary and the pen I am writing with are the best gifts I got - except maybe my cake" (Chapter 1, p. 1).

"Now I am grown, I wonder what Lady saw. She was just the oldest child on the porch, seventeen, with a three-year-old daughter" (Chapter 10, p. 15).

"I have never forgiven Mammy for the hours I stood bare-breasted in the market in Charleston" (Chapter 16, p. 31).

"It's a long road from where I live to Cotton Farm. And every one I have driven it with is dead. Dead, with one remaining to be buried" (Chapter 21, p. 39).

"Dreamy Gentleman was a particular friend of Mealy Mouth's brother (not the young one Other would marry; an older brother nobody really talked about). This brother played Cupid for Mealy Mouth and Dreamy Gentleman; Dreamy Gentleman could not but be slain by...