If we were going to die would you tell me? I dont know. We're not going to die.

Can't stop what's coming. Ain't no waiting on you. That's vanity.

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later.

They'd put an awning up over the gravesite but the weather was all sideways and it did no good.

If I could plan my life I wouldnt want to live it.

People dont feel safe no more, he said. We're like the Comanches was two hundred years ago. We dont know what's goin to show up here come daylight. We dont even know what color they'll be.

My daddy used to tell me not to chew on somethin that was eatin you. Yessir.

Normal people live distracted, rarely fully present. Weird people silence the distractions and remain fully in the moment.

Time went on grey, uncloured, like a long journey where she sat unconscious as the landscape unrolled beside her.

On and on we go, for the mental consciousness labours under the illusion that there is somewhere to go to, a goal to consciousness. Whereas of course there is no goal. Consciousness is an end in itself. We torture ourselves getting somewhere, and when we get there it is nowhere, for there is nowhere to get to.

Was it just that? She was to be content to weave a steady life with him, all one fabric, but perhaps brocaded with the occasional flower of an adventure. But how could she know what she would feel next year? How could one ever know? How could one say Yes? for years and years? The little yes, gone on a breath! Why should one be pinned down by that butterfly word? Of course it had to flutter away and be gone, to be followed by other yes's and no's! Like the straying of butterflies.

And looking ahead, the prospect of her life made her feel as if she were buried alive.