“Can you become The hope I need? Can you help me be More than it is written in my future Or past? Is there another me to find?”

“Life laughs at me now,Sad, forsaken clown.Dreams crumble and fall.They die silently.Where is there to turn to?Where can I find mercy?Love is what I needed,All I wanted from this life.―Carmen, singing "Destiny Theme”

“Yes, she is the fruit that willSustain me and yes, she bringsA rain that I know can chillBut it is a rain so sweet and singsA song my soul insistsThat I follow, if I would existAs more than I have ever, ever beenIf my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin”

“And what I was feeling was the wonderOf being more than me, of being moreThan mere here and now allowedI had become a shining star, a burning novaExploded with loveFlying through an endlesslyExpanding universeAway from the me that wasToward a me that is beyondUnderstanding.”

“People who want to hate you can find something in you they don't like. They have a talent for doing that.”

“People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...But it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special...I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way—you know, some of those Asian people say they don't kill nothing, but they'll take a fish out of water and lay it on the ground and then say it just died on its own—you can do that with a dream, too. And sometimes you can get so frustrated, you feel so bad about your dream, that you go on and kill it yourself. When you do that, you're killing a piece of yourself, too." —Mr. Cephus”

“Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER.”