“We cuss them because we're not good enough for them. We hate them because they wouldn't look at us, couldn't be bothered to give us an interview. I guess there's a Trent & Brent in every city, in every field. I didn't make it and I don't belong, so I'll just go through life hating them.”

“You miss the whole point, Pastor. What I did was wrong, but I couldn't stop myself. Why couldn't I stop myself? Because of what I am. I wasn't born this way. I became a man with a lot of problems, not because of my DNA, but because of what society demanded. Lock ' em up. Punish the hell out of them. And if you make a few monsters along the way, to bad.”

“Ricky had taught me a few cuss words. I usually practiced them in the woods by the river, then prayed for forgiveness as soon as I was done.”

“Prisons are hate factories, Pastor, and society wants more and more of them.”

“Look at me," he said, glancing down at his legs. "A wretched old man in a red monkey suit. A convicted murderer about to be gassed like an animal. And look at you. A fine young man with a beautiful education and a bright future. Where in the world did I go wrong? What happened to me?I've spent my life hating people, and look what I have to show for it. You, you don't hate anybody. And look where you're headed. We have the same blood. Why am I here?”

“I was on the verge of tears, so I turned and ran past the trailer and along the field road until I was safely out of their sight. Then I ducked into the cotton and waited for friendly voices. I sat on the hot ground, surrounded by stalks four feet tall, and I cried, something I really hated to do.”

“I guess we're all, or most of us, the wards of that nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn't explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn't explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were more interested in what is than in why it is. So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic, because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.”