“‎How pleasant to read uncompromised by purpose.”

“When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.”

“There was no way to grasp the reality of the present which slid away each second, invisible as air; reality only existed after the fact, in one's vision of the past.”

“Families hold each other in an iron grip of definition. One must break the grip, somehow.”

“She'd been noticing the feet of colored people ever since she'd come south. "They've been pressed down to the earth so hard," she said. "And the weight of what they carry tortures their feet.”

“A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.”

“You'll see some bad things, but if you didn't see them, they'd still be happening.”