“I can dream, though - can't I, for myself? Even if you have not the imagination or the soul?”

“No, I stay for myself. Everything I need, everything I want, is here. I know it's not enough for most people, but it is for me. Every time I leave, even for an afternoon or an overnight trip to Seattle, I can't wait to get back. This is home. And I guess I'm a person who needs a home, a place to plant seeds and watch them grow.”

“I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book.”

“Sometimes I still have American dreams. I mean literally. I see microwave ovens and exercise machines and grocery store shelves with 30 brands of shampoo, and I look at these things oddly, in my dream. I stand and think, "What is all this for? What is the hunger that drives this need?" I think it's fear. Codi, I hope you won't be hurt by this, but I don't think I'll ever be going back. I don't think I can.”

“If I have made you dream, laugh, cry and smell the roses in bloom, the salt on the sea air, then I have accomplished what I set out do. Feel the magic.”

“I understood that the terror of my recurring dream was not about losing just vision, but the whole of myself, whatever that was. What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all.”

“Take your place, then. Look at what happened from every side and consider all the other ways it could have gone. Consider, even, an Africa unconquered altogether. Imagine those first Portuguese adventurers approaching the shore, spying on the jungle’s edge through their fitted brass lenses. Imagine that by some miracle of dread or reverence they lowered their spyglasses, turned, set their riggings, sailed on. Imagine all who came after doing the same. What would that Africa be now? All I can think of is the other okapi, the one they used to believe in. A unicorn that could look you in the eye.”