`` I could use some help '', Morgan said finally, `` but I can't afford to pay you anything.

`` I mean, we don't have any way to get there and we can't expect you to quit work just to take us to town ''.

I just can't take any chances on getting her pregnant, and if we were sleeping together ''

God in Heaven, I can't refuse you now.

`` I can't leave him there.

`` I know you've got a grudge against me, and maybe I can't blame you.

`` That I can't answer, for I can't imagine something like this happening to me.

Like Luis, I can't see something like this happening to me.

A dear, respected friend of mine, who like myself grew up in the South and has spent many years in New England, said to me not long ago: `` I can't forgive New England for rejecting all complicity ''.

I've had a trying day and I just can't make it out again '', I told them.

`` But why in the name of God can't I give my father blood ''??

`` Why can't I, Doctor ''??

Like every Southerner I can't escape the romantic tradition of brave defeats, forlorn lost causes.

This is why I say we just can't go ahead and disarm the Germans and pull down our own defenses.

The young banker looked at him with a certain surprise, and then he said flatly: `` I'm afraid I can't tell you anything in particular about Kent House.

Sonuvabitch, I can't figure out what in hell for they went and put niggers in my squad for.

As for this rider, I never saw him before or afterwards and never saw him dismounted, so whether he stood tall or short in his shoes, I can't say ; ;

`` But brother I can't take a job right now '', she said with her eyes on her ice cream, `` I'm going to have a baby, Francis Xavier's baby, my own husband's baby ''.

I just wanted to hear you say so ''.

If you tell him I made a pass at you he might think you misunderstood something I said or did, so instead of just telling him I made a pass, say I tried to date you and that you agreed so you could prove to him what a louse I really am.

I felt that he looked at me coldly and appraisingly and seemed to be uncertain what his attitude towards me should be, but he did not say one word which might indicate that he had been told of advances to his wife.

I must say the figure was well made up.

Of course, males play a role there, but believe me when I say you wouldn't enjoy yourself one bit on Eromonga.

`` I realize that this is hardly the time to say it, Penny '', said Keith.

How he returned in such a ghastly condition, or why, I cannot say.

`` Bastards '', he would say, `` all I did was put a beat to that Vivaldi stuff, and the first chair clobbered me ''!!

I am naive, they say, to make use of such words.

and I have heard many say that they are content to earn a half or a third as much as they could up North because they so much prefer the quieter habits of their home town.

I leave it to the statisticians to say what they were, but I noticed several a few years ago, during an automobile ride from Memphis to Hattiesburg.

The traditional strategy of the South has been to expose the vices of the North, to demonstrate that the North possessed no superior virtue, to `` show the world that '' as James's Christopher Newman said to his adversaries ) `` however bad I may be, you're not quite the people to say it ''.

A man must be able to say, `` Father, I have sinned '', or there is no hope for him.

I want to say more about Gabriel's so-called fundamental law.

Asked which institution most needs correction, I would say the corporation as it exists in America today.

It is to say rather, I believe, that he has brought to bear on the history, the traditions, and the lore of his region a critical, skeptical mind -- the same mind which has made of him an inveterate experimenter in literary form and technique.

For pride's sake, I will not say that the coy and leering vade mecum of those verses insinuated itself into my soul.

At the same time, I am aware that my recoil could be interpreted by readers of the tea leaves at the bottom of my psyche as an incestuous sign, since theirs is a science of paradox: if one hates, they say it is because one loves ; ;

I fled, however, not from what might have been the natural fear of being unable to disguise from you that the things about my bridegroom -- in the sense you meant the word `` things '' -- which you had been galvanizing yourself to tell me as a painful part of your maternal duty were things which I had already insisted upon finding out for myself ( despite, I may now say, the unspeakable awkwardness of making the discovery on principle, yes, on principle, and in cold blood ) because I was resolved, as a modern woman, not to be a mollycoddle waiting for Life but to seize Life by the throat.

My God, how long is he going to wait, I thought.

This impressed me, until I realized how limited was his sphere of influence.

When one of the men in the hall behind us spat on the floor and scraped his boot over the gob of spittle I noticed how the clerk winced.

By counting the number of stalls and urinals I attempted to form a loose estimate of how many men the hall would hold at one time.

For although I had crossed a corner of the hall on my way to the toilet I still could not tell for sure how far to the rear the darkness extended.

I understand how you feel about the child.

`` Might get there faster walkin' '', Lord drawled, `` seein' as how I got a busted front spring.

`` I heard how you outdrew Chico.

How lightly her `` eventshah-leh '' passed into the crannies where I was storing dialect material for some vaguely dreamed opus, and how the word would echo.

I remembered, too, the jesting voice of a classmate, Bobby Pauson: `` But how do they reproduce, Dr. Griggs??

Hell, I gave him the first decent job he ever had, six, seven -- how many years ago was it, Rob ''??

`` By observing the conductor '', he says with a twinkle in his eyes, `` I learned how not to conduct ''.

Since he introduces so much modern music, I could not resist asking how he felt about it.

I think it is essential, however, to pinpoint here the difference between the two concepts of sovereignty that went to war in 1861 -- if only to see better how imperative is our need today to clarify completely our far worse confusion on this subject.

Once, then -- for how many years or how few does not matter -- my world was bound round by fences, when I was too small to reach the apple tree bough, to twist my knee over it and pull myself up.

A useful comment on his relation to his region may be made, I think, by noting briefly how in handling Southern materials and Southern problems he has deviated from the pattern set by other Southern authors while remaining faithful to the essential character of the region.

But I can see from this latest trick of memory how much more arbitrary and influential it is than the will.

When I speak of how Shann felt, I know well.

`` I care not how soon we reach Calcutta, and are placed in a still room, with a bowl of milk and a loaf of Indian bread.

Even Harriet could boldly write, `` I know not how it is ; ;

No matter how large the fire, I couldn't seem to shake off the chill that day.

But if you are able & care to come, you know how glad I shall be.