“Answer this: A thousand years from now, will it matter what title the world gave you? No, but it will make a literal hell of a difference whose child you are.”

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove . . . . but the world maybe different because I was important in the life of a child.”

“I was no conscious chronicler or witness of the events that unfolded in those times. Surely you understand. You must understand. Do you look thousands of years into the future? Do you measure what's happening to you now by what may matter a thousand years hence? I was stumbling and lurching, groping and from time to time drowning, as any man might.”

“Grace gave her a gentle smile. "You know what the answer is, don't you? Chocolate. It's always the answer, no matter the question.”

“The only difference between you today and a year from now are the people you know and what you have learned.”

“We know You love us. We love You, too. I mean, six, seven thousand years from now . . . won't make no difference, will it? Everybody gonna be so mixed up by then that far in the future that they all gonna be the same color by then, ain't they?”