After all, a woman didn't leave much behind in the world to show she'd been there. Even the children she bore and raised got their father's name. But her quilts, now that was something she could pass on.

You may hate being pregnant, but the minute the baby is born, she is God's precious child, given to you as a gift.

Jam on a winter took away the blue devils. It was like tasting summer.

... I told him I was so happy that I had nothing else to pray for. 'Why,'says I, I've got prayers to sell.

Stories were a living thing. They changed to suit the teller or the times.

She wasn't any bigger than a minute and had hair like wild gold, and she was always merry as a marriage bell.

Both of them loved the earth and the things that grew in it.

You know what a storyteller is, don't you? It's a person that has a good memory who hopes other people don't.

Don't mind her. She keeps her nose so high in the air, she's liable to drown in a good rainstorm.

Will was dead, but Missouri Ann was going to have a baby. Birth and death were God's way, she told herself. Joy and sorrow were joined together.

Now I am shut up with his mother on Bramble farm and she is no better for conversation than prune whip