“I felt a hole boring through my heart. It was carving a scar that would never heal. I was a man. A man doesn't cry at lost love. Never. Instead, he turns hard. From now on, I would live up to my name"...Rattler.”

“My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up. I made a pledge to myself that I would get up and emerge from this debacle better for having gone through it. I would live up to the expectation I had for myself. I would be the kind of man I wanted to be.”

“You keep distracting from the main point, Vaida. I did not come to Harare to study other people’s scars. I have my own to worry about. They make me sick. I will never recover from the events that carved them into my body. You should focus on healing yours instead of creating new ones.”

“And there, in that phrase, the bitterness leaks again out of my pen. What a dull lifeless quality this bitterness is. If I could I would write with love, but if I could write with love I would be another man; I would never have lost love.”

“As we made love, our scars met,grazing long enough for mine to say“He tries to hide me,”and for yours to reply“I know I embarrass her.”“He never learned how to swim,” whispered my scar.“She got picked last in gym class,then cried into her pillow,” replied yours.Just then, a huge wound opened in me.You touched it. It closed.I was filled, fully healed, and I knewI would never be able not to love you.”

“...if it were anyone else, I would choose to step back and turn away right now. I would never bow my head and push through that wattle, and its golden orbs would never shake loose and nestle in my hair like confetti. I would never grab at its rough trunk to save me from tripping. I would never part its locks of foliage. And I would never lift my head to see this neat clearing of land. I would never look past Jasper Jones to reveal his secret. But I don't turn back. I stay. I follow Jasper Jones. And I see it.”