“My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for.”

“My father once told me that it’s not enough for a man to be lucky; that a guy has to know when that streak is on for him.”

“But while Sasha told us that in America even the most successful men can have but one wife at once--my father had six--and talked about escalators, indoor plumbing, and the various laws of the land, he did not warn us that I would be told by American teenagers that I should go back to Africa. ”

“Krishna was once asked what was the most miraculous thing in all creation, and he replied, "That a man should wake each morning and believe deep in his heart that he will live forever, even though he knows that he is doomed.”

“This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating.”

“And it was the kind of thing that loses the most important nuances when reduced to words. He had never told anyone about it, and he probably never would.”