“I would never trust her. Not one hundred percent. Not the way some people can trust their mothers.”

“But it's what the world does to people. It makes some of us feel ugly and it makes some of us look like criminals, like angry fools.”

“It seemed like someone was always leaving someone, like that's the way the world worked—people were born and people died, people left and people came. It was like the world was saying you can't have everything you want at the same time.”

“And freedom? Oh, freedom. Well that's just some people talking. Your prison is walking through this world all alone.”

“Sometimes...you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living.”

“Some days I just think the whole world and life and everything is stupid. And that's 'cause I be missing you.”

“Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?”