"Let me claim that Africa and I kept company for a while and then parted ways, as if we were both party to relations with a failed outcome. Or say that I was afflicted with Africa like a bout of a rare disease, from which I have not managed a full recovery." Book 1, pg. 9.

"This is our permanent order: Leah, Ruth May, Rachel, Adah. Neither chronological nor alphabetical but it rarely varies, unless Ruth May gets distracted and falls out of line." Book 1, pg. 62.

"I could see that the whole idea and business of Childhood was nothing guaranteed. It seemed to me, in fact, like something more or less invented by white people and stuck onto the front end of grown-up life like a frill on a dress. For the first time ever I felt a stirring of anger against my father for making me a white preacher's...