“I’m not explaining this right. What happened was this. There were these beautiful feelings and loose little pleasures inside me. And this woman was something like an assembly line for my soul. I run these little pieces of myself through her and I come out complete. Now do you follow me?” 

― Carson McCullers, A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud

“She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram fall of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house.” 

― Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“Love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved.” 

― Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories