“If you pray why worry, and if you worry, why pray.”

“The sight of a cross on fire should be unsettling to any true Christian. To a Negro it is worse. A unique kind of fear enters your mind, one perfected by the South: that you could die for the most harmless of offenses. You could die just for the crime of living.”

“If you pray about it don't worry about it. If you're going to worry about it don't pray about it.”

“NexusI wrote stubbornly into the evening.At the window, a giant praying mantisrubbed his monkey wrench head against the glass,begging vacantly with pale eyes;and the commas leapt at me like wormsor miniature scythes blackened with age.the praying mantis screeched louder,his ragged jaws opening into formlessness.I walked outside;the grass hissed at my heels.Up ahead in the lapping darknesshe wobbled, magnified and absurdly green,a brontosaurus, a poet.”

“Please God, please God, can you please tell me why? I ask this of you, yet in my heart, I know.”

“(Olivia) “I’m stopping at the next exit for gas. I’ll get rid of the scrubs. You get out and walk around or by the time we get to Miami you’ll be too stiff to move.”“Don’t worry, when I get stiff I move very well,” he muttered as he turned to face away.“I heard that.”

“I'm a writer, I write things.”