“Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness….”

“When mauma saw my raw eyes, she said, “Ain’t nobody can write down in a book what you worth.”

“In one letter that he had written to her then he had said: Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?”

“But she's a redhead, so she's probably evil, even at her tender age."

"I thought you liked redheads."

"I do. What's your point?”

“Jenny, if you're so con­vinced I'm a loser, why did you bull­doze me into buy­ing you cof­fee?'

She looked me straight in the eye and smiled.

'I like your body,' she said.”

“To by held above the earth and be brushed by the wind," she said,"it's like your heart has been kissed by beauty.”

“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.”

“Yet she likes complications. She wishes she could turn and say: I like people who unbalance me.”

“For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.”

“After a minute he said, "It's like-I don't know how to describe it, but it's like I belong with Jade. She really sees me. I mean, not the outside stuff. She sees me inside, and she likes me. Nobody else has ever done that…except you.”