“I missed my mother and Elysius. It wasn't that I wanted them with me at that very moment. I wanted them in the past. I wanted to have back just one sunny afternoon together.”

“Irene and my aunt want from me what Miss Emma wants from Jefferson,' I said. 'I don't know if Miss Emma ever had anybody in her past that she could be proud of. Possibly - maybe not. But she wants that now, and she wants it from him. Irene and my aunt want it from me. Miss Emma knows that the state of Louisiana is about to take his life, but before that happens she wants something to remember him by. Irene and my aunt know that one day I will leave them, but they are not about to let me go without a fight. It's the same thing, the very same thing. Miss Emma needs a memory. Do you want she told me when I sat on the bed? That Reverend Ambrose and I should get along, and together - together - we should try and reach Jefferson. Why not the soul? No, she wants memories, memories of him standing like a man.”

“I am like them-I want life. I want to go back to Manchuria, to find my house and my go table. I will return to the Square of a Thousand Winds and wait for my Stranger. I know he will come ... one afternoon ... as he did that first time.”

“I wanted to live. For the father and brother who I never knew and for my mother who was cheated of a life of happiness. I wanted to live for them. And I wanted to live for me.”

“If you have reasons for not coming back, I don't want to know them. I just want you to come back anyway”

“That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me them; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted.”