NORA: "I told all this (about the garden) to out-of town guests, then took them up Terminal Tower. I had to stop myself from pointing out the hidden garden and shouting, 'The Gibb Street garden is there!' "

ANA: "I looked out and saw something strange. I thought of calling the police. She was crouched down low with her back to me so I couldn't tell what she was doing."

WENDELL: "My phone doesn't ring much. I can't hear it and not jerk inside. Phone calls that wake me up are the worst."

When LEONA visits City Hall: "I wanted her to see me up close and personal and hear me loud and clear. She just told me to sit down, but I opened my garbage bag and let the stench fill the air."

AMIR believes what he has heard: "The object in America is to avoid contact, to treat all as enemies unless they are your friends."

ANA goes to the vacant lot to investigate: "I stooped down. It was wet there and easy digging. I hacked and dug, but I didn't find anything, except for the large white beans. I tried a new spot and found another, then a third. Then the truth of it slapped me full in the face. I said to myself, 'What have you done?' Two beans had roots. I knew I'd done them harm."

KIM: Kim plants lima beans and wants her father to see them and be proud of her. She digs in the hardened ground and visits often to make sure that they grow. She cries because she never had the chance to know her father and wants to be recognized by him.

A description of ROYCE: (from the Amir chapter) "In return, he watered for those who were sick and fixed fences. He always pretended he hadn't done it. It was always a surprise."

CURTIS: Curtis plants tomatoes to win the heart of a former girlfriend--Lateesha. Curtis planted outside the fence of the garden and some of his tomatoes are stolen. So he asks Royce, a teenager who is homeless, to keep watch over his plants. Curtis wants to make sure that nothing bad happens to his plants.

VIRGIL: "That lettuce was like having a new baby in the family. And I was like its mother. I watered it in the morning if my father was still out driving."

KIM: "He would watch my beans break ground and spread, and would notice with pleasure their pods growing plump. He would see my patience and my hard work. I would show him that I was his daughter."

ROYCE: "Royce walked away from where the celebration began. He had saved the garden, but now he was nowhere to be found. The gardeners wanted to thank him, but he was gone."

KIM: "I never entered the lot before or wanted to. I did so now, picking my way between tires and trash bags. I nearly stepped on two rats and froze. Then I told myself that I must show my bravery."

WENDELL: "There's plenty about life I can't change. Cant bring the dead back to life on this earth. Can't make the world loving and kind. Can't change myself into a millionaire. But a patch of ground in this trashy lot---I can change that. Change it big. Better put my time into that than moaning about the other all day."