This is one of those stories where the feeling of the moment stands in for visual details.

I thank my mother (Ma, you're only second cause you got the dedication), who used to make me write essays whenever I got into trouble, explaining exactly what I'd done and why I'd done it.

On our life map, he drew a bright circle around twelve through eighteen. This was the abyss where, unguided, black boys were swallowed whole, only to reemerge on corners and prison tiers.

No matter was the professional talkers tell you, I never met a black boy who wanted to fail.

Boredom is a lack of crazy. Its a lack of creativity. Invention. Innovation. If you're bored, blame yourself.

She was strength and power and so many things he’d pretended for twelve years he didn’t miss, didn’t need.

I like to try to do a little work before I do anything in the morning, even if it's a paragraph.

As the saying goes: God made man and woman; Colonel Colt made them equal.

The greatest gift for an individual or a nation... was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.

It's the mortal cup Jace, not the mortal toilet bowl.

At a distance this fine oak seems to be of ordinary size. But if I place myself under its branches, the impression changes completely: I see it as big, and even terrifying in its bigness.

End is a gloomy word.

I have found that the more I teach those who want to learn, the more I learn.

A martyr is the one who bears witness that the Shari'ah of Allah is more valuable to him than his own life.