Carson McCullers

People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things nobody else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human.

Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons—throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to. In some men it is in them—— The text is ‘All men seek for Thee.’ Maybe that was why—maybe—— He was a Chinaman, the fellow had said. And a nigger and a wop and a Jew. And if he believed it hard enough maybe it was so. Every person and every thing he said he was——

want—I want—was all that she could think about—but just what this real want was she did not know.

‘Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty

‘But what I’m getting at is this. When a person knows and can’t make the others understand, what does he do?’

did not wholly understand the intricate play of ideas and the complex phrases, but as he read he sensed a strong, true purpose behind the words and he felt that he almost understood

his thin hands seemed lighter in color than the rest of his body and the palms were soft yellow. His hands had always an immaculate, shrunken look, as though they had been scrubbed with a brush and soaked for a long time in a pan of water.

The quietness grew out longer and neither of them could say a word.
That was when she realized about her Dad. It wasn’t like she was learning a new fact—she had understood it all along in every way except with her brain. Now she just suddenly knew that she knew about her Dad. He was lonesome and he was an old man. Because none of the kids went to him for anything and because he didn’t earn much money he felt like he was cut off from the family. And in his lonesomeness he wanted to be close to one of his kids—and they were all so busy that they didn’t know it. He felt like he wasn’t much real use to anybody.

Girls were scared a man would come out from somewhere and put his teapot in them like they was married.

When she thought of what she used to imagine was God she could only see Mister Singer with a long, white sheet around him. God was silent—maybe that was why she was reminded. She said the words again, just as she would speak them to Mister Singer: ‘Lord forgiveth me, for I knoweth not what I do.’