Quotes from Robert Newton Peck

Never miss a chance...to keep your mouth shut.

Somehow, the Good Lord don't want to see no man start a cold morning with just black coffee.

There would be no work on this day. A day no pigs would die.

Fences sure are funny, aren't they, Papa?" "How so?" "Well, you be friends with Mr. Tanner and all. But we keep this fence up like it was war. I guess that humans are the only things on earth that take everything they own and fence it off.

Need is a weak word. has nothing to do with what people get. Ain't what you need that matters. It's what you do.

I stayed there until the fire died. So it would not have to die alone.

I'd heard about the Baptists from Jacob Henry's mother. According to her, Baptists were a strange lot. They put you in water to see how holy you were. Then they ducked you under the water three times. Didn't matter a whit if you could swim or no. If you didn't come up, you got dead and your mortal soul went to Hell. But if you did come up, it was even worse. You had to be a Baptist.

Oh, Papa. My heart's broke.

When you re the only one to do something it always gets done.

The sky's a good place to look," he said. "And I got a notion it's a good place to go.

Try an' try," he said, "but when it comes day's end, I can't wash the pig off me. And your mother never complains. Not once, in all these years, has she ever said that I smell strong. I said once to her that I was sorry." "What did Mama say?" "She said I smelled of honest work, and that there was no sorry to be said or heard.

The wind was as ripe as apples, so full of fall that you could almost bite every breath.

No, sir. I won't complain. Except when I move it sharp and sudden, my arm is real numb. It's the rest of me that's in misery." "Where?" "My backside and my privates. I'm stuck so full of prickers, it makes me smart just to think on it.

It always looked to me like she was smiling. In fact, I know she was. Lots if things smile, like a flower to the sun. And one thing sure. I knew that just like I could smile to see Pinky, she sure could smile to see me.

of all the things in the world to see, I reckon the heavens at sundown has got to be my favorite sight. How about you?" "The sky's a good place to look," he said. "And I got a notion it's a good place to go.

A fence sets men together, not apart.

Sooner or later, animals will let loose a human trait, as men sometimes behave like a beast.

To watch him sit a horse was better than hearing music. Every motion did easy. He and his animal were one graceful entity, as though they'd not been asked to work, but to waltz.

Cows are stupid. Almost as brainless as the humans who herd 'em on horseback.

Titus, the secret of joyfulness is hawg simple. I'm happy. Because I know who and what I be.

Smiling, he smuggled me an extra-tender ear of buttery sweet corn, which I gnawed to cob in three seconds. Aware I no longer ate human. Rather like a homeless dog.

When I fly over your ranch, Soup, know what I'll do to say howdy?" "Pee out the window.

No matter how tender you care about people, I was discovering, you'll not alter anyone. Best afford them the noblest gift that a man can offer his neighbor. Acceptance.