Words that taste of a free, natural world.
Reading gave him a language for what he had lost.
How precious are these lines from the poet Derek Walcott?
Patrick memorized this poem.
"Days that I have held, days that I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters, my harboring arms."
Reading taught him his own courage.
Remember that he kept reading Frederick Douglass, even though it was painful.
He kept being conscious, even though being conscious hurts.
Reading is a form of thinking, that's why it's difficult to read because we have to think.
And Patrick chose to think, rather than to not think.