“Now, we struggle, brothers and sisters, and we strive. We have our trials and our tribulations but we are blessed. We go to bed, praise Jesus, and we rise again in the morning. And if that's not a blessing, I don't know what is.”

“There is a particular kind of afternoon sun that exists only in autumn. A golden light drapes itself over the world of that hour. It falls through the afternoon sky, fine and faint as a swirl of cigarette smoke caught in the wind, nearly transparent. So sweet, that light, insisting softly, goldly against the windows.”

“At home they thought of white people as a vague but powerful entity--like the forces that control the weather, that capable of destruction, that hidden from view.”

“Now, we struggle, brothers and sisters, and we strive. We have our trials and our tribulations but we are blessed. We go to bed, praise Jesus, and we rise again in the morning. And if that's not a blessing, I don't know what is.”

“Down the hall the children slept three to a bedroom; Hattie could almost hear them growing, their wrists lengthening and poking out beyond the cuffs of their sleeves, their feet outgrowing their shoes, their shoulders widening and pulling the fabric of their coats taut.”