“...when the bullets fly and sundry erratic fragments of shell are seekinga fellowʼs life, and he has to lay low in the pits to keep his light from being snuffedout, then is a good opportunity to reckon up and balance accounts with the worldin general and a fellowʼs near relatives and family in particular. Many, many,many a time have I thought of the careless word or deed never recalled, oramended, and during those midnight hours would I have given almost life itself tohave the opportunity of making amends for them. Not through fear of what isbeyond this life, but in order that after my flesh had turned to dust, and my bonesto traces of white lime, those that knew me in life could say, “Charlie is gone, andthough his life was full of inconsistencies, still he was a good hearted fellow, andif he did not amount to much as man, still he done no one any harm.” Charlie Biddlecom January 22, 1865”

“Do you ever think when you look at someone, when to you listen to someone, does that person really have a life?" Abdul was asking the boy who was not listening. "Like that woman who just went to hang herself, or her husband, who probably beat her before she did this? I wonder what kind of life is that," Abdul went on. "I go through tensions just to see it. But it is a life. Even the person who lives like a dog still has a kind of life. Once when my mother was beating me, and that thought came to me. I said, 'If what is happening now, you beating me, is to keep happening for the rest of my life, it would be a bad life, but it would be a life, too.' And my mother was so shocked when I said that. She said, "Don't confuse yourself by thinking about such terrible lives.'" Sunil though that he, too, had a life. A bad life, certainly-the kind that could be ended as Kalu's had been and then forgotten, because it made no difference to the people who lived in the overcity. But something he'd come to realize on the roof, leaning out, thinking about what would happen if he leaned to far, was that a boy's life could still matter to himself.”

“All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed.For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.”

“Raised on a cotton farm in rural Georgia, as many white/negro families did to make a meager living, my daddy had a saying.'All a poor man has is his good name and good credit. God help him if he looses either of those.'I still believe that.”

“It’s natural for children to drift through their early childhood taking their parents for granted, then adolescence rears its ugly head and insouciance morphs into rebellion as they strive to define themselves by being as different from those who gave them life as possible. But for me, now on the eve of my sixteenth year, familial insurrection had yet to seize me—and in reality, it never would. I was my father’s son. His moral compass was inexorably mine. I knew that day I would forever define myself not by contrasts to my father, but by emulation, striving to be a “good man” like him. But the term “good man” was not adequate to describe him. Daddy was a great man who charted his own course in life, guided by his own light, irrespective of the opinions of others, be they my grandmother’s or those of his Brothers in the Lodge. He was the kind of man I wanted to be, the kind of man I was already becoming without fully realizing it.”

“He drops his head, his cheek pressed to mine, and he whispers in my ear. "If we go, we can't come back. Not ever. Things will never be the same."I lean into him, needing to feel every inch of him, wishing he could absorb me and put me out of my misery."I'm not perfect Cami. I'm not a thoroughbred like he is. I never will be."I'm under his spell, but I hear what he's saying. And I don't care. I don't care about anything but having Trick, having him in my life, having as much as he can give me. "I hear sometimes the wild ones are the best."He says nothing at first, but I can almost hear his smile as he no doubt recognizes his own words.”

“I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life. ”