“And I suddenly feel the branch give way
I’m on the ground
My arm goes numb I look around
And I see him come to get me
He’s come to get me
And ev’rything’s okay.”
“That night, before he tried to sleep, Louie prayed. He had prayed only once before in his life, in childhood, when his mother was sick and he had been filled with a rushing fear that he would lose her. That night on the raft, in words composed in his head, never passing his lips, he pleaded for help.”
“I came to help,” Uncle snapped. “Not because I believe in your crazy dream. Call it an old man’s whim if you like.” But then Uncle relented for a moment. “And we didn’t come to laugh. There will be those among the Tang people who will laugh – but now they will have to laugh at all of us, for we’ll share in your folly.”
“There were groceries and herbal shops, clothing shops and laundries, halls that housed the brotherhoods or the district associations or the offices of family clans. Uncle pointed out the building of the district from which any family came and to which I could go for help. Besides that there was the Lee family building, which would help everyone who was named Lee.”
“They bowed their heads together as Louie prayed. If God would quench their thirst, he vowed, he’d dedicate his life to him. The next day, by divine intervention or the fickle humors of the tropics, the sky broke open and rain poured down. Twice more the water ran out, twice more they prayed, and twice more the rain came.”
“Today people look at me, at my job and my Ivy League credentials, and assume that I’m some sort of genius, that only a truly extraordinary person could have made it to where I am today . . . Whatever talents I have, I almost squandered until a handful of loving people rescued me.”
“Shame is the emotion which gives us permission to be human. Shame tells us of our limits. Shame keeps us in our human boundaries, letting us know we can and will make mistakes, and that we need help.”
“That there needed neither art nor science for going to GOD, but only a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him, or for His sake, and to love Him only.”
″‘You’ll help me, won’t you?’ he cried, walking across to Ailsa on his knees. ‘You won’t see my thrown out to wander the streets with nothing but traffic signs and graffiti to read and nowhere to lay my head at night!‘”
But I loved Catherine too; and her brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply. Now that she’s dead, I see her in Hindley: Hindley has exactly her eyes, if you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red; and her—