“I don't know whom or what he was defying. [...] [M]aybe the God he had never believed in.”

“(M)aybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.”

“He never said "Don't tell your mama." He never had to say it. I did not know how to tell anyone what I felt, what scared me and shamed me... (109)”

“We know not whom God loves nor whom He hates.”

“He got to know me, not with the minuteness with which I knew him, but with his spontaneous conclusions. He talked about everyone and defined them, but I had the privilege of being the only one in whom he discovered new facets, the only one to whom he addressed questions from the soul, the only one he examined and in whom he found what they never gave him, but he was frightened by the discovery. The two of us were filled with fear that night, the only night, when we again closed what we’d opened, as if we’d never seen it.”

“It's interesting said Jack."What is?""You believe in God." he said. You just don't believe that God is good.”