"You and I have ... have never been a family of tuck-ins and bedtime stories any more than we've been a family of consistent bill money, pantries, full refrigerators, washers and dryers. We have always been a bent black southern family of laughter, outrageous lies, and books.... You gave me a black southern laboratory to work with words."

"Gary swept along the green croplands glimmering in the sun. They were uncannily saturated with meaning this morning. He noticed in amazement the puffy soybean plants, elegant spears of corn leaves beginning their downward arcs, wavery plump sugar beet greens in perfect stands, the promising bristles of wheat. Tremendous life was endowed here, and there, golden life."