Though a child, I did not picture a monster – he was no creature all teeth, all vicious blue eyes behind mangled wire spectacles; his voice was not slow and reptilian, his hands not huge black claws. I knew the nature of evil; I knew its benign, easy face. He would be a man, simply.

Children know everything about beauty,” Titch countered softly. “It is adults who have forgotten.

Be faithful to what you see, Washington, and not to what you are supposed to see.

The cabbie’s eyes sort of glazed over. Canada kills any conversation quick, I learned long ago. It’s a little trick of mine.

I hesitate, I suppose it is only from a general dread of company. We all of us wish for it, in our solitude, but on the eve of a great visit, we shudder.

Baltimore always seems like the kind of city you either leaving or just returning to. Ain’t no kinda place to hang your hat. Even as a kid I dreamed of getting out.

But human faces are so interesting,” said I. “Yes, to be sure. But when you are looking at one face, you are not looking at another. You are privileging that face. You are deciding who is worthy of observation and who is not. You are choosing who is worth preserving.

The wrecked visage I was forced to carry like an unwanted warning to others was to her a known thing, a familiar mask. She seemed to see beneath it something of her own suffering and recovery – the acceptance of a life-changing wound, the will to go on.

You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.

What a strange journey we embarked upon that afternoon, full of anguish and desire and wonder.