“Even as a small child, I understood that woman had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.”

“Some secrets, she thought, were better told; some were better left the burden of the carrier, that they might not cause pain to others.”

“If I were a woman I would not be reassured by being told the legislators are apparently not concerned with the health of a woman. They should be.”

“Some things stayed secrets even when you told them.”

“Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. ‘Ring Of Fire’—June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me-that’s the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt.”

“He had a moment of clarity about how life should be lived: not as a child or as a woman. They were the two worst things to be.”

“Man, woman and child, the people of Shadowcatch were privy to the one true secret of the universe: there is always a darker shadow lurking beyond the one whose face you can see.”

“It was odd that I should discover eternity in this way, long before I knew what eternity was, and even before I had learned the proposition that all man are mortal - yes, while I was actually living in eternity myself. It was as if a fish were suddenly to discover the water it swam in. I mentioned this to my grandfather one day when we happened to be alone in the living-room.”

“Had another dream about the lions at the door
They were not half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind'a ecstasy's got a hold on me
Walls, windows, trees, waves coming through
You be in me I'll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kind'a ecstasy's got a hold on me
Up among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley were the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kind'a ecstasy's got a hold on me, and I'm
Wondering where the lions are and I'm
Wondering where the lions are…”

“Such Small Things:
For a long time there were only your footprints & laughter in our dreams & even from such small things, we knew we could not wait to love you forever.”