Quote 7: "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth. Anger stirs and wakes in her it opens its mouth, and like a hot-mouthed puppy, laps up the dredges of her shame. They are weeds.' Preoccupied with that revelation, she trips on the sidewalk crack. But they do not look at her and do not send love back. A dart of affection leaps out from her to them. Quote 5: "Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike." pg. From the tiny impressions gleaned from one another, they created a sense of belonging and tried to make do with the way they found each other." pg. Each member of the family in his own cell of consciousness, each making his own patchwork quilt of reality - collecting fragments of experience here, pieces of information there. Quote 4: "They slipped in and out of the box of peeling gray, making no stir in the neighborhood, no sound in the labor force, and no wave in the mayor's office. 'Here,' they said, 'this is beautiful, and if you are on this day "worthy" you may have it.'" pp. Quote 3: "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window sign - all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.
Even after what came later, there was no bitterness in our memory of him." pg. Quote 1: "We stare at her, wanting her bread, but more than that wanting to poke the arrogance out of her eyes and smash the pride of ownership that curls her chewing mouth." pg.