“For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.”

“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking, than it is to think yourself into a new way of acting.”

“Some people, like my dad, have invisible scars; others, like Tia, have scars you can see.”

“Govern thy life and thy thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one, and read the other.”

“Once, I discovered the skulls of two impala rams, their horns locked into an irreversible figure-of-eight; the two animals had been trapped in combat, latched to each other during the battle of the rut. The harder they had pulled to escape from each other, the more intractably stuck they were, until they had fallen exhausted, to their knees, in an embrace of hatred that had killed them both. When I picked up the skulls to add to my growing collection of what Vanessa called "Bobo's smelly pile," the hooked horns fell away from each other and the story of the impalas' death struggle was undone.”

“He that plants trees loves others besides himself.”

“Then I kissed Max because I loved him, and everyone I had ever loved before had gone away and I had never kissed them goodbye.”