“From a distance,' he says, 'my car looks just like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she's going to get help, she'll get it from herself or she'll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Because the other day when I saw how hard it was for Mobe to go to the hospital to see her, I was embarrassed that I didn't know her better, that I ever laughed at one joke about her. I was embarrassed that I let some kid go to school with me for twelve years and turned my back on pain that must be unbearable. I was embarrassed that I haven't found a way to include her somehow the way Mobe has.'Jesus. I feel tears welling up, and I see them running down Ellerby's cheeks. Lemry better get a handle on this class before it turns into some kind of therapy group.So,' Lemry says quietly, 'your subject will be the juxtaposition of man and God in the universe?'Ellerby shakes his head. 'My subject will be shame.”

“If you're writing about angry people, you use the language of anger. If you're writing about desperate people, you use the language of desperation.”

“When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren't the same exact experience.”

“What I hope my writing reflects... is a sense of the connections between all human beings... and a different perspective on the true nature of courage. For me, those are things worth exploring and writing about.”

“Talking with Elaine like that, with no judgment from her or anything, seemed to bring my feelings more to the surface so I could look at them. I love times like that; you don't get many of them.(Walker, in STOTAN!)”

“Something about the joy and pain of that moment, something about the excruciating contrast, made me feel that no matter what happens now, my life has been worth it. What a ride.”

“...we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it.”

“So you didn’t tell me it was a messed-up idea to keep this all a secret because. . .” Because experience is the only teacher,” Hey-Soos says. “Even if I could have told you, it would have been a lecture. Why do you think kids don’t listen to their parents, or people don’t leave churches and do what the preacher tells them? There’s only one thing that’s universal.” What’s that?” The truth.”

“But the truth doesn't need to be known, or believed, to be true.”

“You have to see everyone in relationship to you. Just because you understand the shit in someone else's life doesn't mean you don't stand up for your own”

“...racist thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.”