“It is an extraordinary act of courage,' said Tulas Shorn, 'to come to know a stranger's pain.”

“You're a brave, brave girl, Tula" Gaby told her."I know", said the little girl. "I got it from you.”

“Many go out for wool, and come home shorn themselves.”

“There are heroes and, emphatically, heroines enough in this history. Yielding to the temptation to focus on their courage, however, may miss the point. Part of the legacy of people like Ella Baker and Septima Clark is a faith that ordinary people who learn to believe in themselves are capable of extraordinary acts, or better, of acts that seem extraordinary to us precisely because we have such an impoverished sense of the capabilities of ordinary people.”

“It's a liberation to know that an act of spontaneous courage is yet possible in this world. An act that has something of unconditional beauty.”

“It’s a release to know that in spite of everything a premeditated act of courage is still possible.”