“His ears reached for the sky in a fight to see which one could be the most pointed.”

“He can see us," said the angel who had been gesturing so pointedly. His voice was subdued but seemed to reach my ears effortlessly and gently.”

“When you have reached a point at which you cannot see more, You must remember that there may be a point beyond this at which you can see everything.”

“Look at that, Vera.”I tilt my head back and see a sky full of stars.“Can you tell which one is me?” he asks.I point to the brightest one.”

“The sky, I thought, is not so grand;I 'most could touch it with my hand!And reaching up my hand to try,I screamed to feel it touch the sky.”

“The dream was ennobling but doomed. It was Malcolm's curse to see this before the most of the rest of us; it was the beginning of his sainthood that when black Americans reached that point--when they arrived, that is to say, at their blackness--Malcolm was already there.”