If You Come Softly

“Jeremiah was black. He could feel it. The way the sun pressed down hard and hot on his skin in the summer.”

This quote, which starts Part One of the novel, succinctly characterizes Jeremiah and his relationship to his Blackness: He is aware of his Blackness and proud to be Black. Jeremiah believes that being Black isn’t just the color of your skin; it is a feeling and a way of existing in the world.

“For a moment we stared at each other, neither of us saying anything. There was something familiar about him, something I hadn’t seen before.”

Throughout the book, Ellie and Jeremiah reference the feeling that there is something inexplicable about their connection. Despite their differences, Ellie and Jeremiah find shared experiences and feelings with each other. In this quote, Ellie acknowledges that from the very start, though Jeremiah was different than everyone else around her, she still felt something that told her they were the same.

“He wondered where that stuff went to, where love went to, how a person could just love somebody one day and boom—the next day love somebody else.”

Jeremiah often finds himself missing people and things throughout the book. From his late grandma to the time in his life when his parents were together, Jeremiah yearns for what has already gone. In this quote, Jeremiah ponders what it means for love to no longer exist. He questions how it is possible for a powerful feeling like love to just simply disappear.