Speaker for the Dead

Or maybe it's just that you can't really know them until you stop hating them

When you really know somebody, you can't hate them

Some people beat their wife and children because they lust for power, but are too weak or stupid to win power in the world

Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand.

This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question.

“I'm not kidding. This is a serious confrontation between good and evil.”

“Everything is,” said Novinha. “It's figuring out which is which that takes so much work.

No, to understand who a person really was, what his or her life really meant, the speaker for the dead would have to explain their self-story--what they meant to do, what they actually did, what they regretted, what they rejoiced in. That’s the story that we never know, the story that we never can know--and yet, at the time of death, it's the only story truly worth telling.