The money” The girl stiffened at something she heard in his voice, something jagged and sharp, like words torn by the blade of a knife.

She’s trying to sleep with every boy on the football team before her junior year. If she does, she wins five hundred dollars.” “Now who would pay her to do a thing like that?” “The football team.

I used to be afraid of the dark. But sometimes, it’s the best place to be. Sometimes you can see things in the dark that you can’t see in the light.

Novalee Nation, seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight – and superstitious about sevens – shifted uncomfortably in the seat of the old Plymouth and ran her hands down the curve of her belly.

You’re dying right now. Right this minute.′ He looked at his watch, said, ‘Right this second,’ then tapped it with his finger. ‘See there? That second passed. It’s gone. Not gonna come again. And while I’m talking to you, every second I’m talking, a second is passing. Gone. Count them up. Count them down. They’re gone. Each one bringing you closer to your dying time.

The boy, a ten-year-old copy of the man...

But if it’s something you want, then time doesn’t matter. Time doesn’t matter at all.

Tell them that our lives can change with every breath we take. Lord, we both know that. Tell them to let go of what’s gone because men like roger Briscoe never win. And tell them to hold on like hell to what they’ve got- each other, and a mother who would die for them, and almost did.

She always set three alarms for fear that the first employees to arrive would discover her sleeping – a Goldilocks without her bears.

We’re alcoholics. We’re generally satisfied just to hurt ourselves.