“The idea of voluntary segregation went against every value I had been taught. What did being born black have to do with excellence?”

“All the authors I studied, all the historical figures, with the exception of George Washington Carver, and all those figures I looked upon as having importance were white men. I didn't mind that they were men, or even white men. What I did mind was that being white seemed to play so important a part in the assigning of values.”

“What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn't kill Mr. Nesbitt.”

“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.”

“When you're young, you make mistakes. The big thing that's different now is that when I was a kid, you could survive your mistakes. We didn't have guns. Today, kids have access to guns. The same kids that would have been in trouble and gotten a stern talking-to are now going to jail for fifteen or twenty years. Instead of bloody noses there are bodies lying in the street with chalk outlines around them. The values are basically the same, but it's easier to mess up.”

“My job is to make sure the law works for you as well as against you, and to make you a human being in the eyes of the jury.”

“I know I'm tired of thinking about what I should have done yesterday. I know I'm just tired. If I knew what to do with my life, how to fix it up, I would have done it a long time ago. You can't dig that? You think I want to live like I'm somebody's throwaway?”