"My father was dying and I was pregnant. Both struck me as impossibly unreal." p. 14
"...my father had mostly been a feeling for me, powerful yet vague, without a real face, a real body, like the one looming over the pecan-hued little boy who was looking up at Nick, Bob and me." p. 88
"Sensing that it was the right thing to do, we both nodded, as if bowing to the flag that our grandfather had once fought against, that our mother and father now embraced for nearly ten years, that we were about to make our own. As my head bobbed up and down, I felt my old life quickly slipping away. I was surrendering myself, not just to a country and a flag, but to a family I'd never really been part of." pp. 105-6
"My father's cab is named for wanderers, drifters, nomads. It's called a gypsy cab." p. 120
Photo by Jonathan Demme
"I was no writer...What I wanted to tell you and your brother was too big for any piece of paper and a small envelope." p. 22
"He loved you so much...he left you with us." p. 77
"Frè, map mouri. Brother, I'm dying." p. 41
"Science is God's way of shielding miracles." p. 131
“It's not easy to start over in a new place... Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.” p. 140
"Kite zetwal yo tonbe." Let the stars fall. p. 240
Courtesy of Danticat family
"Hell is whatever you fear most." p. 182