- Louisa Mae Cardinal: Memories are a funny thing. People like to change the past, so they can remember what it is they wanna remember.
- [first lines]
- Louisa Mae Cardinal: [narrating] When I was ten, and my brother, Oz, was seven, our lives changed.
- Oz Cardinal: Our lives changed in the blink of an eye. Forever.
- Private Nurse: Perhaps you don't speak English that well. I'm coming with you.
- Louisa Mae Cardinal: Perhaps you don't understand how folks around here feel about trespassers. We take it very seriously... And I've never fired a warning shot in my life.
- Louisa Mae Cardinal: [aiming her shotgun at George Davis] You can find your way off my property. Now get off before I lose patience and you lose blood.
- [last lines]
- Lou Cardinal: [narrating] I will always believe that Louisa gave her life so our mother could come back to us. And maybe it didn't hurt that a little girl told her mom she loved her. With our mother back, we didn't have to sell the farm.
- Elderly Lou: And Cotton sued Southern Valley for Diamond's death. Since we were the only family he had, the money went to us and Diamond still lives here, in a place I know he loved. My mother and Cotton were married a year later. They spent four wonderful decades together and died within a week of each other.
- Elderly Lou: Like my father, I left the mountain, but I came back. I married and raised a family here and I started writing novels just as my father had. And though I never won the sorts of awards he did, my books tended to sell a little better.
- Elderly Lou: It's a true comfort to know that I will die here on the high rock, and I will fear my passing not at all, for the view from here is so very fine.