Howard E. Rollins Jr.: Bannister Sparks

Quotes 

• [upon returning from a late night buggy ride with Melissa] 

  Prometheus Jones : Will you get a look at Mr. Bannister Sparks!

  Bannister Sparks : This is the most glorious morning of the most perfect day of my life! Diamonds in the grass instead of dewdrops! Small quartets of meadowlarks in the trees!

  Brodie Hollister : [to the rest of the Chamber of Commerce]  That's not normal.

  Varges De La Cosa : No, but it fits him well.

• [Cally is trying to console Bannister after Melissa's death] 

  Cally Oaks : You know, my father used to say that the three primary colors of grief are despair, pain, and anger, but that it's the nature of crystals to scatter light so that in all of our grief there are other spectrums, other colors. Like the color Courage, the color Strength, the color Love. He'd try and put physics over sadness.

  Bannister Sparks : The man had a nice way with words.

  Cally Oaks : He said them to me when my mother died... and I've had to say them to myself several times since my father died.

• Bannister Sparks : You know, a long time ago, poets in China thought that each star in the night sky was held in place by a single hummingbird and that if you saw a shooting star, it meant that one of the hummingbirds had died and dropped its star. Lanterns were lit on such occasions to replace the dropped star and to mourn the greatness of such a small loss.

  Melissa DeVry : Which are we, Bannister - the light of the dropped star or the small loss?

  Bannister Sparks : Forever the light, Melissa... forever the light.

  [Bannister guides the buggy in which he and Melissa are riding into a grove illuminated by Chinese lanterns] 

• [last lines] 

  [speaking as if to Melissa's spirit, in the grove illuminated by Chinese lanterns where she and Bannister spent their last night together] 

  Bannister Sparks : We all got out of it in one piece. We fight well together. You see, we're the Chamber of Commerce of Wildside. If it's all right with you, I'll come out here from time to time to get things off my chest - the place, the light of any dropped star. Forever the light, Melissa... forever the light.

  [touches a lantern, then slowly rides back to town, as the rest of the Chamber of Commerce emerge from the trees and join him and a shooting star streaks overhead]