“French Revolution- all them fellas the figgered her out got their heads chopped off. Always that way, jus as natural as rain. You didn't do it for fun no way. Doin' it cause you have to. Cause it's you. Look a Washington; Fit the Revolution an' after, them sons-a-bitches turned on him. An' Lincoln the same. Same folks yellin' to kill 'em. Natural as rain.”

“Don't take no shit off fools. An' you judge a person by what's in 'em, not how they look. An' you do the right thing. You gotta be one of the good guys, son: 'cause there's way too many of the bad.”

“Oh you gotta fire and it's burnin' in the rain.Thought that it went out, but it's burnin' just the same.And you don't look back, not for anything.'Cause love someone, love them all the same.If you LOVE someone, love them all the same.”

“Henry McAllan was as landsick as any man I ever seen and I seen plenty of em, white and colored both. It's in their eyes, the way they look at the land like a woman they's itching for. White men already got her, they thinking, You mine now, just wait and see what I'm gone do to you. Colored men ain't got her and ain't never gone get her but they dreaming bout her just the same, with every push of that plow and every chop of that hoe. White or colored, none of em got sense enough to see that she the one owns them. She takes their sweat and blood and the sweat and blood of their women and children and when she done took it all she takes their bodies too, churning and churning em up till they one and the same, them and her.”

“... the decades looked on and didn't notice her passing. They stared from their fixed mounts across at each other and didn't see revolution striding between them, on her way to destiny.”

“There will always be a storm. You may be rained on or cause the rain yourself. I much prefer the latter.”