If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O Quotes

“Now that she was old enough to have some perspective on the whole business, she saw life as a field of tangled kudzu vines, with endless runners going in all directions beneath the surface. In her mind she wanted to unearth the kudzu and examine the roots, to find the hidden connections between people and events. She didn't want to affect anything at all, the way men did; it would satisfy her simply to know.”
― Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

“The cheeseburger had been rubbery and the potatoes slick with cooking oil---hardly the ideal food for a lunch conversation---but she had tried. It was like lobbing mudpies off a glass wall: you can only see your own efforts, not any response from the target.”
― Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

“It's funny how people from high school can make you feel so small and useless all of a sudden. Just like your parents can. One minute, you're a happy, functioning human being, and the next minute you're a gawky, socially ignorant adolescent again!”
― Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

“As compensation for the lack of an AM-FM radio in his patrol car, Spencer had developed an automatic Muzak in his mind. Without his conscious thought, his mind would provide a continuous background hum of popular songs to entertain him while he drove. Sometimes, he'd noticed, he could tell how he felt about something by analyzing the songs going through his head: "Good Day, Sunshine" meant a good mood; "I'm Looking Through You" told him that he was pissed off....He supposed that all his moods were set to music while he was young, and neither songs nor emotions had troubled him much since then.”
― Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

“Finally Pix-Kyle Weaver shrugged and said, “Pm kinda interested in Vietnam.”
― Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O

“I’m sorry about the way it looks. . . People often said that when they let him in, as if he were a health inspector instead of a sheriff. He had once gone to arrest a murderer who had let him in with just those words. The only remorse she’d shown, in fact.”
― Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O