Quotes from William Melvin Kelley

Anyone, anyone can break loose from his chains. That courage, no matter how deeply buried, is always waiting to be called out. All it needs is the right coaxing, the right voice to do that coaxing, and it will come roaring like a tiger.

People guide you and you don't even know it. You don't have simple traitors anymore like Benedict Arnold

Some folks swear, though not at all, that, using chains, he sliced his head off--derby and all--and that the head sailed like a cannon ball through the air a quarter mile, bounced another quarter mile, and still had enough steam to cripple a horse some fellow was riding into New Marsails.

The facts of a man's life ain't very important, but it seems like they should get said anyways.

As I remember them, late summer Saturdays were always hot, dry, and colored a deep green. I know now some Saturdays must have been gray; rain must have made water princesses dance in gutter puddles, as my grandmother assured me they did, each time a drop plunked down. But I will never really believe it rained on Saturdays, for I can remember only the sun playing with bits of broken glass in the vacant lot next to my house and myself running all day up and down the block like a heathen.

I never watched the sun when it was overhead dragging the day after it.