“The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others. In dangerous valleys and hazardous pathways, he will lift some bruised and beaten brother to a higher and more noble life.”
“The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help. That way if you sniffle a little they won’t hear you. If anybody knows that you are crying, they’ll start talking about it and soon it’ll be your turn to get beat up when the lights go out.”
“He’s let things beat him, Roy Luther has. The land, Kiser Pease, the poverty. Now he’s old and sick and ready to die and when he does, this is what we’ll inherit - his defeat and all that goes with it.”
″‘I must be good,’ he whispered urgently. ‘I must be good,’ and he rubbed a sore spot on his arm. He was such a bad boy. Mum said she was kinder to him than most mothers. She only gave him soft beatings.”
“You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man, if you live such a life as a man ought to live, let you be as strong and healthy as you may; and when you are, you will find it a very ugly feeling. I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch friend by you who is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best lie where you are, and wait for better times, as poor Tom did.”
“He had lost the Minnow to her rightful and unpleasant owner; he would have to go ashore and fight the owner for calling him a thief, and, as he was the smaller boy, he would probably be beaten.”