“Unless you know the code, it has no meaning.”

“You mean they killed her?" asked David.They ate her," said Brother Number One. "With porridge. That's what 'ran away and was never seen again' means in these parts. It means 'eaten.'"Um and what about 'happily ever after'?" asked David, a little uncertainly. "What does that mean?"Eaten quickly," said Brother Number One.”

“You still carrying an arsenal in the trunk of your car?”“Why, you need something?”“No, but if your car is hit by lightning I’ll know where my lawn went.”

“So what you gonna do?”“Push a stick into the beehive and rustle up some bees. The Larousses are hosting a party today. I think we should avail ourselves of their hospitality.”“We got an invite?”“Has not having one ever stopped us before?”“No, but sometimes I just like to be invited to shit, you know what I’m sayin’, instead of havin’ to bust in, get threatened, irritate the nice white folks, put the fear of the black man on them.”He paused, seemed to think for a while about what he had just said, then brightened.“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” I said.“Real good,” he agreed.”

“The nature of compassion isn't coming to terms with your own suffering and applying it to others: It's knowing that other folks around you suffer and, no matter what happens to you, no matter how lucky or unlucky you are, they keep suffering. And if you can do something about that, then you do it, and you do it without whining or waving your own fuckin' cross for the world to see. You do it because it's the right thing to do.”

“We are not meant to know the time or the nature of our deaths (for all of us secretly hope that we may be immortal).”

“My feelings for Raphael are mine, and mine alone. I loved him, and that is all anyone needs to know. The rest is no business of any man's.”