Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.

Rich folk don't try so hard

....we ain't doing civil rights here. We just telling stories like they really happen.

All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.

I intend to stay on her like hair on soap.

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.

Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?