Ain’t no good ever comes of it, if you ain’t steering yourself.

Was Jane now. All Jane. Come calamity or come calm, was myself and none else.

But tell you true, I honestly didn’t think nothing about the Green Man beefing that posse. Was just men and the world’s full of them.

Greatness untethered from God results in calamity unrestrained by men.

Maybe I’d lost something. Maybe I’d lost a lot—more, even, than I could suffer—but I still had my own self. And lonesome as I might be, wasn’t no force on Earth or from above what could make me less.

No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.

I tell you, mister, if there’s anything good about being a hot-tempered bitch, it’s knowing right well what buttons to push in others seeing as they’re the same ones what get your own back up.

Whenever a nation or a group of people is devoid of light, catastrophe comes, calamity hits, there is danger everywhere.

Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts. Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared.

There were a lot of these middle-aged single types in the neighborhood, shipwrecked by every kind of catastrophe, but she was one of the few who didn't have children, who lived alone, who was still kinda young. Something must have happened, your mother speculated. In her mind, a woman with no child could be explained only by vast untrammelled calamity.Maybe she just doesn't like children.Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn't mean you don't have them.