It's Tuesday, change-the-damn-sheets day. If I don't do it today, that makes Wednesday change-the-damn-sheets day too.
I guess we all get a little snippy when we're not feeling good.
Lord, I never seen blue hair on a black woman before or since. Leroy say you look like a cracker from outer space.
That's all a grit is, a vehicle. For whatever it is you rather be eating.
Because ain't that white people for you, wondering if they are happy enough.
Demetrie came to wait on my grandmother in 1955 and stayed for 32 years. It was common, in Mississippi, to have a black domestic cleaning the kitchen, cooking the meals, looking after the white children.
I may not remember my name or what country I live in, but you and that pie is something I will never forget.
I hear Raleigh's new accounting business isn't doing well. Maybe up in New York or somewhere it's a good thing, but in Jackson, Mississippi, people just don't care to do business with a rude, condescending asshole.
When you little, you only get asked two questions, what’s your name and how old you is, so you better get em right.
It's so hot, Mister Dunn's rooster walks in my door and squats his red self right in front of my kitchen fan. I come in to find him looking at me like 'I ain't moving nowhere, lady.
President Kennedy's assassination, less than two weeks ago, has struck the world dumb. It's like no one wants to be the first to break the silence. Nothing seems important.
Down in the national news section, there's an article on a new pill, the Valium they're calling it, to help women cope with everyday challenges. God, I could use about ten of those little pills right now.
He needs "space" and "time," as if this were physics and not a human relationship.
We done something brave and good here....Maybe [we] don't want to be deprived a any a the things that go along with being brave and good. Even the bad.
Cause everbody care. Black, white, deep down we all do.
I'm a Southerner - I never take satisfaction in touching a nerve. I guess if I'm forced to find a good side, I'm glad that people are talking about an issue that hasn't really been discussed all that much. I'm glad that people are talking about it from the black perspective and the white perspective.
Her nose wrinkle up cause now she got to remember to say she Mae Mobley Three, when her whole life she can remember, she been telling people she Mae Mobley Two. When you little, you only get asked two questions, what's your name and how old you is, so you better get em right.
I'm sorry, but were you dropped on your head as an infant?
Saying thank you, when you really mean it, when you remember what someone done for you-she shakes her head, stares down at the scratched table-it's so good.
I'm a Southerner - I never take satisfaction in touching a nerve.
On the one hand I wonder, Was this really my story to tell? On the other hand, I just wanted the story to be told. But the truth is that I didn't think anybody was going to read it.
Some things I just got to keep for myself.
Miss Skeeter say maybe don't spec nothing at all, that most Southern peoples is "repressed." If they feel something, they might not say a word. Just hold they breath and wait for it to pass, like gas.
Week after Clyde left you I heard that Cocoa wake up to her cootchie spoilt like a rotten oyster. Didn't get better for three months. Bertrina she good friends with Cocoa She knows your prayer works.
Why? Why are you hitting me?
Lines between black and white ain't there neither. Some folks just made those up, long time ago. And that go for the white trash and the so-ciety ladies too. Thinking.
That white uniform was her 'pass' to get into white places with us - the grocery store, the state fair, the movies. Even though this was the 70s and the segregation laws had changed, the 'rules' had not.
I'd cry, if only I had the time to do it.
Why don't we just build you an house outside Hilly?
All I know is, I ain't saying it. And I know she ain't saying what she want a say either and it's a strange thing happening here cause nobody saying nothing and we still managing to have us a conversation.
The sound of the ice cream churning outside sounds like bones crunching.
And if your friends make fun of you for chasing your dream, remember—just lie.
I'm starting to hate the whiny teenage songs about love and nothing.
If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate.
Tonight, I'll strip off all this armor and let it be as it was before..
Frying chicken always makes me feel a little better about life.
Miss Leefolt sigh, hang up the phone like she just don't know how her brain gone operate without Miss Hilly coming over to push the Think buttons.
I head down the steps to see if my mail-order copy of Catcher in the Rye is in the box. I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.
I'm sorry, but were you dropped on your head as an infant, or were you just born stupid?
But after Mr. Evers got shot a week ago, lot a colored folk is frustrated in this town. Especially the younger ones, who ain't built up a callus yet.
There is so much you don't know about a person. I wonder if I could've made her days a little bit easier, if I'd tried. If I'd treated her a little nicer. Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.
I slip off my flats and walk down the front porch steps, while Mother calls out for me to put my shoes back on, threatening ringworm, mosquito, encephalitis. The inevitability of death by no shoes. Death by no husband.
It was delicious to have someone to keep secrets with.
We must keep this a perfect secret.
I think if you're president, color goes away completely: you're president and it doesn't matter if you're white, green or purple.
Remembering can be almost as good as what actually happens.
But the help always knows.
Hilly raises her voice about three octaves higher when she talks to coloured people. Elizabeth smiles like she's talking to a child, although certainly not her own. I am starting to notice things.
Baby Girl, I say. I need you to remember everything I told you. Do you remember what I told you?
