"He's crawling around breaking branches and I hear the front door open and there's our neighbor, Daisy Gooch, in her bathrobe. She looks ten feet tall and 900 years old" (p. 3).

"I was in love with the air, the smell of the grass, the warm light in the cottonwood trees at the edge of the field" (p. 5).

"The idea is not to run faster than the antelope - only cheetahs can run faster than pronghorn antelope - but to run longer and farther in the heat of day" (p. 19).

"I see culture as being the ability to make something out of nothing, a kind of magic" (p. 23).

"But the mayor was passionate about the value of teaching kids to play basketball. He said that team sports teach kids the best values: they learn to cooperate and play by the rules, they learn to love the game, and through the...