“But we never learn what it goes to show, because he never got to finish the letter. He never got to finish a lot of things. We want to say he died like a hero. We want to say he was brave until the end. And maybe he was. Maybe he was. But he was also just a kid. He was a scared kid who died far from home, in a country that wasn't his, a country that took his blood and his weight and is tears and didn't give him back to us.” SadHeartbreaking Book:We Are Not Free Source: We Are Not Free
“There's things I'm never gonna forget, like the sight of the Japantown boys running down Buchanan Street or the first time I saw Keiko laughing in the snow, and I know that this is gonna be one of 'em” SadHeartbreakingBuy Me Every Book By This Author Book:We Are Not Free Source: We Are Not Free
“They're sending him to a hospital, then back home, and it's funny because I know he's lying on a cot somewhere with a roof over his head and some nurses checking his bandages or whatever, waiting to get well enough for the ship back to America, but to me it's like he's dead because--home? Thinking of home? It's like thinking of heaven. Someplace you hope you'll end up one day, but good luck, buddy, because you're a soldier, not a saint.” SadHeartbreaking Book:We Are Not Free Source: We Are Not Free
“It isn't raining anymore. The rain has become soft and light and cold. It's snowing. Snowing. I'm thinking of Topaz and the first snow I ever saw, flakes tumbling lazily out of the sky and settling on the barracks and the dusty roads, so quiet. And the guys throwing snowballs.The numbness in your fingers, that wet slap in your side, Shig and Tommy and Minnow and Stan Katsumoto... Everyone running and shrieking with laughter. Mas, Frankie, Bette, Yum-Yum... Keiko laughing. Prettiest girl I ever saw, with snow like stars in her hair. I close my eyes, and I think I can hear us, all of us, running. The Topaz roads are turning into pavement, the barracks are turning into San Francisco, the desert air is turning wet and salty, and we're running, running until we hit the ocean, that roaring blue expanse, and all of us, running into waves. Laughing.” SadHeartbreakingPlease Help Me Book:We Are Not Free Source: We Are Not Free