Imagination Takes Humility, Love And

Writing, For Me, Is A Search For God.

But The Hearts Of Small Children Are Delicate Organs. A Cruel Beginning In This World Can Twist Them Into Curious Shapes. The Heart Of A Hurt Child Can Shrink So That Forever Afterward It Is Hard And Pitted As The Seed Of A Peach. Or Again, The Heart Of Such A Child May Fester And Swell Until It Is A Misery To Carry Within The Body, Easily Chafed And Hurt By The Most Ordinary Things.

Justice Itself Is A Chimera, A Delusion. Justice Is Not A Flat Yardstick, Applied In Equal Measure To An Equal Situation.

Sometimes This Fellow's Music Was Like Little Colored Pieces Of Crystal Candy, And Other Times It Was The Softest, Saddest Thing She Had Ever Imagined About.

Now Hoppin'-john Was F. Jasmine's Very Favorite Food. She Had Always Warned Them To Wave A Plate Of Rice And Peas Before Her Nose When She Was In Her Coffin, To Make Certain There Was No Mistake; For If A Breath Of Life Was Left In Her, She Would Sit Up And Eat, But If She Smelled The Hopping-john, And Did Not Stir, Then They Could Just Nail Down The Coffin And Be Certain She Was Truly Dead.