“I wish I’d paid better attention. I didn’t yet think of time as finite. I didn’t fully appreciate the stories she told me until I became adult, and by then I had to make do with snippets pasted together, a film projected on the back of my mind.”

“Now that her spirit had left, I’d thought she would feel light. Then I realized it was the spirit that carries the weight of the body and not the other way around.”

“I still loved Granny. It flowed out of my chest. With Granny gone, where would my love go?”

“You ain’t got no advantages when you’re small and contrary.”“I ain’t puny,” I said hotly. “And I ain’t contrary.”

“The word 'impossible' ain’t in my dictionary.”

“Granny always said finding justice was as tough as putting socks on a rooster.”

“As we flew down the highway I started to think seriously about what I was doing and what would happen. I felt Beau’s hand slide over mine, holding my hands tighter to his chest. It was then I realized that I didn’t care what was going to happen. I didn’t care that we had just left everything I knew or that we’d committed grand theft auto. It didn’t feel wrong to me. I felt like those moments were what life was all about; seizing the ones that make you feel alive and never letting go.”