1. “I look in their smiling faces, at their hope for me. It’s not like Mother’s meddling, but a clean hope, without strings or hurt.”
2. “I’m tired of the rules,” I say.”
3. “…and that’s when I get to wondering, what would happen if I told her she something good, ever day?.”
4. “Maybe I ain’t too old to start over, I think and I laugh and cry at the same time at this. Cause just last night I thought I was finished with everything new.”
5. “Mrs. Charlotte Phelan’s Guide to Husband-Hunting, Rule Number One: a pretty, petite girl should accentuate with makeup and good posture. A tall plain one, with a trust fund.”
6. “I have decided not to die.”
7. “Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person.”
8. “I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, down inside, the woman she gone grow up to be. She is tall and straight. She is proud. She got a better haircut. And she is remembering the words I put in her head. Remembering as a full-grown woman.”
9. “I never once heard her say she gone leave Leroy, and Minny don’t say things twice. When she do things, they done the first time.”
10. “And you call yourself a Christian,’ were Hilly’s words to me and I thought, God. When did I ever do that?.”
11. “…out of the blue, he kissed me. Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body-my skin, my collarbone, the hollow backs of my knees, everything inside of me filled up with light.”
12. “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.”
13. “I set her on her wooden baby seat so her little hiney don’t fall in and soon as I turn my back, she off that pot running.”
14. “I’d cry, if only I had the time to do it.”
15. “I’m sorry, but were you dropped on your head as an infant?”
16. “Mother calls up the stairs to ask what in the world I’m typing up there all day and I holler down, ‘Just typing up some notes from the Bible study. Just writing down all the things I love about Jesus.”
17. “Who knew heartbreak would be so goddamn hot.”
18. “take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they’ll fit right in your pocket.”
19. “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”
20. “Now I had babies confuse before. John Green Dudley, first word out a that boy’s mouth was Mama and he was looking straight at me. But then pretty soon he calling everybody including hisself Mama and calling his daddy Mama too… Nobody worry bout it. Course when he start playing dress-up in his sister’s Jewel Taylor twirl skirts and wearing Chanel No. 5, we all get a little concern.”
21. “I’ve been dropped off in a place I do not belong anymore. Certainly not here with Mother and Daddy,…”
22. “It always sound scarier when a hollerer talk soft.”
23. “That’s all a grit is, a vehicle. For whatever it is you rather be eating.”
24. “Ugly live upon the inside. Ugly be a hurtful mean person…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?…With Constantine’s thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.”
25. “I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it.”
26. “Frying chicken always makes me feel a little better about life.”
27. “The only way you’re going to keep sharp is to read and write every day.”
28. “Who knew paper and ink could be so vicious.”
29. “You is kind,” she say, “you is smart. You is important.”
30. “Lord, I never seen blue hair on a black woman before or since. Leroy say you look like a cracker from outer space.”
31. “Great books give you a feeling that you miss all day, until you finally get to crawl back inside those pages again.”
32. “All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”
33. “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.”
34. “Because ain’t that white people for you, wondering if they are happy enough.”
35. “which means I have to lie to her on a daily basis, which is in itself enjoyable but a little degrading at the same time”
36. “I wait on white ladies who walk right out the bedroom wearing nothing but they personality…”
37. “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.”
38. “You’re the smartest one in the class, Aibileen,” she say. “And the only way you’re going to keep sharp is to read and write every day.”
39. “Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother too.”
40. “Look around, investigate, and write. Don’t waste your time on the obvious things. Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.”
41. “Find I can get my point across a lot better writing them down”
42. “But the help always knows.”
43. “Only three things them ladies talk about: they kids, they clothes, and they friends. I hear the word Kennedy, I know they ain’t discussing no politic. They talking about what Miss Jackie done wore on the tee-vee.”
44. “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. ”
45. “No one tells us, girls who don’t go on dates, that remembering can be almost as good as what actually happens.”
46. “Be the prettiest book I ever seen. The cover is pale blue, color a the sky. And a big white bird – a peace dove – spreads its wings from end to end.”
47. “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
48. “…that’s what I want them to know. Saying thank you, when you really mean it, when you remember what someone done for you”
49. “With other people, Hilly hands out lies like the Presbyterians hand out guilt, but it’s our own silent agreement, this strict honesty, perhaps the one thing that has kept us friends”
50. “What if I’m stuck. Here. Forever.”
51. “If singing was a color, it would’ve been the color of that chocolate.”
52. “He needs “space” and “time,” as if this were physics and not a human relationship.”
53. “I wash my hands, wonder how an awful day could turn even worse. It seems like at some point you’d just run out of awful.”
54. “The day your child says she hates you, and every child will go through the phase, it kicks like a foot in the stomach.”
55. “A course we different! Everybody know colored people and white people ain’t the same. But we still just people.”
56. “She got a confused, disgusted look on her face, like she done salted her coffee instead a sugared it.”
57. “You’re gon’ have to say to your self, am I gon’ believe what them fools say about me today?.”
58. “In the dark, I get a glimpse of myself from way above, like in a movie. I’ve become one of those people who prowl around at night in their cars. God, I am the town’s Boo Radley, just like in To Kill a Mockingbird”
59. “For a minute, we’re just two people wondering why things are the way they are.”
60. “NO ONE TELLS US, girls who don’t go on dates, that remembering can be almost as good as what actually happens.”
61. “And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.”
62. “It weren’t too loo long before I seen something in me, had changed. A bitter seed was planted inside of me. And I just didn’t feel so, accepting, anymore.”
63. “Then she say, “Aibee, you’re my real mama.” She don’t even look at me, just say it like she talking about the weather.”
64. “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.”
65. “it always sound scarier when a hollerer talk soft.”
66. “It seems like at some point you’d run out of awful.”
67. “I was surprise to see the world didn’t stop just cause my boy did.”
68. “Rich folk don’t try so hard”
69. “For four days straights, I sit at my typewriter in my bedroom. Twenty of my typed pages, full of slashes and red-circled edits, become thirty-one in thick Strathmore white.”
70. “I may not remember my name or what country I live in, but you and that pie is something I will never forget.”
71. “Rule Number One for working for a white lady, Minny: it is nobody’s business. You keep your nose out of your White Lady’s problems, you don’t go crying to her with yours—you can’t pay the light bill? Your feet are too sore? Remember one thing: white people are not your friends. They don’t want to hear about it. And when Miss White Lady catches her man with the lady next door, you keep out of it, you hear me?”
72. “Sanitation Initiative,” Miss Hilly say. “As a disease-preventative measure.” I’m surprised by how”
73. “She cuts out biscuits with a shot glass that’s never shot a thing but short dough.”
74. “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.”
75. “The sound of the ice cream churning outside sounds like bones crunching.”
76. “who gone protect our peoples? Ain’t no colored policemans.”
77. “That’s the way prayer do. It’s like electricity, it keeps things going.”
78. “Stuart needs “space” and “time,” as if this were physics and not a human relationship.”
79. “I am looking for a future for myself. I like to hear about the possibilities of others.”
80. “I guess that’s when I understood what shame was and the color of it too. 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”
81. “I intend to stay on her like hair on soap.”
82. “Bosoms, are for bedrooms and breastfeeding. Not for occasions with dignity.”
83. “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?.”
84. “I’m sorry, but were you dropped on your head as an infant?.”
85. “No, white women like to keep their hands clean. They got a shiny little set a tools they use, sharp as witches’ fingernails, tidy and laid out neat, like the picks on a dentist tray. They gonna take they time with em.”
86. “Prayer? You mean y’all just gonna sit around and pray about it?”
87. “She takes a deep breath through her nose and I see it. I see the white-trash girl she was ten years ago. She was strong. She didn’t take no shit from nobody. Miss”
88. “I put the iron down real slow, feel that bitter seed grow in my chest, the one planted after Treelore died. My face goes hot, my tongue twitchy. I don’t know what to say to her. 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.”
89. “Everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it.”
90. “I listened wide-eyed, stupid. Glowing by her voice in the dim light. If chocolate was a sound, it would’ve been Constantine’s voice singing. If singing was a color, it would’ve been the color of that chocolate.”
91. “Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.”
92. “That was the day my whole world went black. Air look black, sun look black. I laid up in bed and stared at the black walls a my house.”
93. “I tell myself that’s what you get when you put thirty-one toilets on the most popular girl’s front yard. People tend to treat you a little differently than before.”
94. “There is so much you don’t know about a person.”
95. “Sure, I dreamed of football dates, buy my real dream was that one day I would write something that people would actually read”
96. “That’s what I love about Aibileen, she can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they’ll fit right in your pocket.”
97. “Sorry is the fool who ever underestimates my mother.”
98. “She’s wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.”
99. “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.”
100. “They say it’s like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime.”
101. “Oh, it was delicious to have someone to keep secrets with…It was having someone look at you after your mother has nearly fretted herself to death because you are freakishly tall and frizzy and odd. Someone whose eyes simply said, without words, “You are fine with me.”
102. “I nursed a worthless, pint drinker for twelve years and when my lazy, life-sucking, daddy finally died, I swore to God with tears in my eyes I’d never marry one. And then I did.”
103. “Womens, they ain’t like men. A woman ain’t gone beat you with a stick. Miss Hilly wouldn’t pull no pistol on me. Miss Leefolt wouldn’t come burn my house down. No, white womens like to keep they hands clean. They got a shiny little set of tools they use, sharp as witches’ fingernails, tidy and laid out neat, like the picks on a dentist tray. They gone take they time with em.”
104. “If you in the morning Throw minutes away, you can’t pick them up in the course of a day. You may hurry and scurry, and flurry and worry, you’ve lost them forever, forever and aye.”
105. “Tonight, I’ll strip off all this armor and let it be as it was before..”
106. “If I’d played Mammy, I’d of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress. -Minny”
107. “Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank you for bringing it back to our family.”
108. “I’d cry, if only I had the time to do it.”
109. “Cause that’s the way prayer do. It’s like electricity, it keeps things going.”
