“What should I get from books?” Alcide asked in French.That you are not alone — even along this broken tractor road. You need to know nothing else,” my father answered in French.”

“You do not understand -- no accomplishment overcomes the stigma of being different. [...] I try not to think about it and cannot eat my supper or nothing. I didn't understand it at first. But now I do. You are not different in the way difference is acceptable but in another, bigger way.”

“I was nothing more than a thug with Tolstoy in my pocket.”

“Now the end is going to come - in one fashion or another", Bines said, softly, and again he turned to Ralphie and smiled. "We all know, the end will come. You either face your hunters or run from them.”

“Those who scorn you taunt only themselves -- I knew this without reading one word; because in reading one is reminded of the truth man is given at birth -- by man I mean man and woman.”

“[...]no one can do an injury to you without doing an injury to themselves.”

“Some people just have more of a chance than others, and some just have to take the chances that they have. I know a lot of people who were more unfortunate than Jerry Bines, who turned out much better-”