“I knew that change was coming, the way you know things you can't see, by feeling them; by instinct. The way the bees know everything they know.”

“You see, that's who you are, Joe. All these things. That's the person I know, and through him is the way you'll know me, because connected to all these things are moments, and for so many of them, I was there. And that's the thing that hurts so much...You see, you were the only person who knew everything. Because you were there. You were my witness. And you make sense of the fucked-up mess I become every now and then. And I could at least look at you and think, at least he knows why I am the way I am. There were reasons. But I can't do that anymore and I feel so lonely.”

“I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to.”

“I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, "This is not right. —Claudette Colvin”

“[A God-thing is] when something happens in your life, and you look at it and can't explain how or why it happened, but you know there's a reason for it. You know that God is doing something in your life, and it changes you. There's no other way to explain it except to see it as a God thing.”

“I know it can't be the same between us, but that doesn't change the way I felt about you then.”