“What's the pleasure?' I asked.'Planning, I guess. I don't know. Doing stuff never feels as good as you hope it will feel.”

“Doing stuff never feels as good as you hope it will feel.”

“A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me will full hands; How could I answer the child?......I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. There was the hope Dr. Holden had talked about-the grass was a metaphor for his hope. But that"s not all. He continues, Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, Like grass is a metaphor for God's greatness or something.... And then soon after is itself a child.... And then soon after that, Or, I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broadzones and narrow zones. Growing among black folk as among white.”

“I don't know how I look, but I know how I feel: Young. Goofy. Infinite.”

“So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”

“I always had this idea that you should never give up a happy middle in the hopes of a happy ending, because there is no such thing as a happy ending. Do you know what I mean? There is so much to lose.”

“And I wanted to tell her that the pleasure for me wasn't planning or doing or leaving; the pleasure was in seeing our strings cross and separate and then come back together.”