Far as I'm concerned, friendship between black and white don't mean that much 'cause it usually ain't on a equal basis. ... Maybe one day whites and blacks can be real friends, but right now the country ain't built that way.

I'm a Southerner, born and bred, but that doesn't mean I approve of all that goes on here, and there are a lot of other white people who feel the same.

We ain't never gonna lose this land.

There were too many ears that listened for others besides themselves, and too many tongues that wagged to those they shouldn't.

No day in all my life had ever been as cruel as this one.

I learned a history not then written in books but one passed from generation to generation on the steps of moonlit porches and beside dying fires in one-room houses, a history of great-grandparents and of slavery and of the days following slavery; of those who lived still not free, yet who would not let their spirits be enslaved.

She grabbed his arm. "Let it be, son!" she cried. "That child ain't hurt!" "Not hurt! You look into her eyes and tell me she ain't hurt!