“I wonder if the brass understands that people are getting killed.”

“I have looked at my father many times and wondered how he could stand knowing he was my mother’s ruin. He was too weak to leave her. Mother should have thrown him out and saved them both, like Sissy was saving the two of us.”

“Half of what’s wrong with people today is that they ain’t got no place to go that makes them peaceful. I don’t reckon you got no place like that.”

“It seemed to him that he could never get a proper grip on any of the beauty in this world.”

“At home they thought of white people as a vague but powerful entity--like the forces that control the weather, that capable of destruction, that hidden from view.”

“Six wasn't sure religion was any more than a lot of people caught up in a collective delirium that disappeared the minute they stepped out of the church doors and onto the street.”

“I make a point of seeing the sunset. Even if I am on duty, I go on deck to watch the sky darken into twilight. It helps me remember that this strange place is still the earth, and I am still on it.”