Best hurry, he thought. Best get outa this weather. He wanted to die but he really didn't want to catch a cold to do it. - Edward P. Jones

"I wanted to tell you somethin, and I have been workin my mind so the words will tumble out in a straight line. You know how that can be, John."

"I do, Barnum. Just set them words one by one and they'll do fine and we'll get where we got to go."

Augustus wasn’t driving the wagon very fast because he had his family together again and all time was now spread out before him over the valley and the mountains forever and ever.

He knew he was going to die but he thought this little thing might provide him with a nothing stool way off in the corner of heaven reserved for fools, people too stupid to come out of the rain. People got to that corner by heaven's back door.