“Winn-Dixie looked straight at me when I said that to him, like he was feeling relieved to finally have somebody understand his situation. I nodded my head at him and went on talking.”
“I stayed where I was and studied the tree. I wondered if my mama, wherever she was, had a tree full of bottles; and I wondered if I was a ghost to her, the same way she sometimes seemed like a ghost to me”
″‘See,’ I said, ‘you don’t have any family and neither do I. I’ve got the preacher, of course. But I don’t have a mama. I mean I have one, but I don’t know where she is. She left when I was three years old. I can’t hardly remember her. And I bet you don’t remember your mama much either. So we’re almost like orphans.‘”
“Winn-Dixie started to snore, and I nudged him with my foot to try to make him quit. I wanted to hear the rest of the story. It was important to me to hear how Littmus survived after losing everything he loved.”
“All of a sudden it was hard for me to talk. I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arms around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.”
“I think the preacher thinks about my mama all the time, too. He’s still in love with her...But he doesn’t tell me that. He won’t talk to me about her at all.”
″‘She loved you very much.’
‘But she left me,’ I told him.
‘She left us,’ said the preacher softly...‘She packed her bags and left us, and she didn’t leave one thing behind.‘”
“My daddy is a good preacher and a nice man, but sometimes it’s hard for me to think about him as my daddy, because he spends so much time preaching or thinking about preaching or getting ready to preach. And so, in my mind, I think of him as ‘the preacher.‘”
″‘Are you looking for a home?’ the preacher asked, real soft, to Winn-Dixie.
Winn-Dixie wagged his tail.
‘Well,’ the preacher said. ‘I guess you’ve found one.‘”
“I was just getting ready to stick my tongue out at them; but then I thought about what Miss Franny said, about war being hell, and I thought about what Gloria Dump said, about not judging them too hard. And so I just waved instead.”
″‘When I told you your mama took everything with her, I forgot one thing, one very important thing she left behind.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You,’ he said. ‘Thank God your mama left me you.‘”
“You know, my eyes ain’t too good at all. I can’t see nothing but the general shape of things, so I got to rely on my heart. Why don’t you go on and tell me everything about yourself, so as I can see you with my heart.”