“People here snarl and frown a lot, he wrote; he had seen neither a smile nor the sun in months. What is life without beauty, love, and justice?”

“He looked on people, and he neither liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither heartened nor saddened.”

“He wanted and needed their love, but felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor humility nor purity”

“His brother maintained that what sent people backing away was neither his size nor his mother's blood, but solely the expression on his face. To test Samuel's theory, Charles had tried smiling - and then solemnly reported to Samuel that he had been mistaken. When Charles smiled, he told Samuel, people just ran faster.”

“Without the frown of clouds and lightning, the vines would be burned by the smiling sun.”

“I had a cousin, Randall, killed on Iwo Jima. Have I told you?Have I told you his was a beautiful smile? Not the smile of a cynic, nor the easy, hungry smile of boys his age, whose smiles that aim to get them somewhere, are a commodity in exchange for God knows what. No. His was completely without intent; an accident of a smile. The kind of smile that would have surprised him if he could have seen it for himself. But he was too young to know his own extraordinariness.”