I'd heard August say more than once, "If you need something from somebody, always give that person a way to hand it to you." T. Ray needed a face-saving way to hand me over, and August was giving it to him.

I'd forgotten how that sort of craving felt, how it rose suddenly and loudly from the pit of my stomach like a flock of startle birds, then floated back down in the slow, beguiling way of feathers.

"Why is it sports is the only thing white people see us being successful at? I don't want to play football," he said. "I wanna be a lawyer." "That's fine with me," I said, a little annoyed. "I've just never heard of a Negro lawyer, that's all. You've got to hear of these things before you can imagine them." "Bullshit. You gotta imagine what's never been."

People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different.

We must err , do so on the side of audacity

In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional... What a special case I was.

I eventually found that the soul is more than an immortal commodity to win and save. It is the repository of the inner divine, the truest part of us.