“That's the difference between us {the poor} and them {the rich}, I thought. We know all of what's bad because we can't keep from it. They live in their big houses and the walls are thick enough around them to keep the bad out.”

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

“The walls in front of us are not there to keep us from achieving our desire. They are there to see how bad we want what we desire.”

“We said we would meet again but we made no arrangements. Not out of any bad feeling between us, but because I felt it had all been said, or not said but understood, and she probably did too. To know she was there was enough, and for her to know I was around was probably too. Sometimes that's all people ever really need. Just to know.”

“To know things, for us to know things, is bad for them. We get to wanting and when we get to wanting it's bad for them. They thinks we want what they got . . . . That's why they don't want us reading.”

“There are some secrets we keep because we can't bear to let them out and some because it's better to keep them in.”