“Two women, one nigra and one white, whose voices were part of me, whose hands had comforted, soothed, and taught. One a pine-knot torch and the other a scented beeswax candle against the darkness of my ignorance and fear. Both gone.”

“There are different kinds of love, Sarah. I feel one kind of love for your father. A special kind. Another kind for Warren. And still a different kind for you children.' She smiled at me. 'Heaven rue the day we can't feel love for one another. I wouldn't want to live in such a world, would you?”

“You don't trade in the devil you know for the one you don't know.”

“When a woman's face is wrinkledAnd her hairs are sprinkled, With gray, Lackaday!Aside she's cast, No one respect will pay;Remember, Lasses, remember.And while the sun shines make hay:You must not expect in December, The flowers you gathered in May.”

“My heart stopped beating, I know it did. Hearts do that sometimes, for just a beat or two. Then they start up again. But they never regain those missed beats, and nothing is ever the same afterwards. Life proceeds to a different cadence, and never again as harmonious as before”

“I want a place. It has to do with the kind of person I want to be. And how I fit in to everything. I want people to listen when I open my mouth. And know I'm worth listening to."She stared at me. "That's all?"To me it was not all, it was everything.”

“Love is like light and there are two kinds, the bursting fireworks of the moment and the solid, fixed stars that sometimes become obscured in the heavens, but are always there, year after year, for a lifetime.”