If gorillas has lived in Coast City, the Flats were where you’d find them screaming in the trees. (Chapter 1)

He had to learn to get along without her affection, the way fat people got along without sweets. (Chapter 3)

If you were black, you were “boy” till you were eighty. Then you were uncle. (Chapter 3)

What do we do now?” Baby asked. Rufus shook his head. “Do like the man said. Face the wall, maybe that’s where the answers are. (Chapter 9)

You gets beat’ into this gang, and you gets beat’ out. (Chapter 9)

A kid joins a gang because he's been thrown out of every school, playground, and club in the city. (Chapter 10)

I wear my All-American Sap pin inside my undershirt. The scratching reminds me that you can’t bring the dead back to life. (Chapter 10)

It was like a very disorderly room in his mind that he was afraid to even try to... (Chapter 13)