One Crazy Summer Quotes
"As long as Vonetta kept her fear to one shriek and Fern kept hers to biting Miss Patty Cake, I kept on spinning straw, making everything all right."
"That’s mainly what I do. Keep Vonetta and Fern in line."
"With Cassius Clay you hear the clash of fists, like the plane getting jabbed and punched. With Muhammad Ali you see a mighty mountain, greater than Everest, and can’t no one knock down a mountain."
"The truth was, one pout from either Vonetta or Fern and I would have given up the window seat."
"We push our way up in the clouds; the clouds get mad and push back. Like you and Fern fighting over red and gold crayons."
"We were trained spies back in Brooklyn. Scrunched together, pressing our ears to the door, wall, or air, we used hand signals and mouthed words instead of whispered."
"I wasn’t worried about Vonetta. Once we got on the ground, she’d be her showy self again and this fraidycat episode would be long faded."
"I can’t say I blamed Big Ma for feeling the way she did. I certainly didn’t forgive Cecile."
"Cecile didn’t care that the money had been baking under my foot since we’d left Brooklyn."
"My name is Nzila. Nzila is a poet’s name. My poems blow the dust off surfaces to make clear and true paths. Nzila."
"A name is important. It isn’t something you drop in the litter basket or on the ground. Your name is how people know you."
"The earth turns slowly on its axis, while also spinning around the sun. Day wouldn’t change to night if the earth didn’t spin on its axis."
"Revolving. Revolution. Revolutionary. Constant turning. Making things change."
"Your name is who you are and how you’re known even when you do something great or something dumb."
"My name was my own, and I couldn’t imagine that anyone else had it in all of Brooklyn."
"Justice for all. All power to all of the people."
"We didn’t come for the revolution. We came for breakfast."
"We all have our la-la-la song. The thing we do when the world isn’t singing a nice tune to us. We sing our own nice tune to drown out ugly."
"I stopped filling in 'Free Huey.' I turned and said, 'Shut up,' to Vonetta’s friend."
"I didn’t say anything. I just wanted her to come in here and act like a mother. A real one."
"Big Ma taught me to be a hard washboard scrubber. To not accept dirt, dust, or stains on clothes, floors, or walls, or on ourselves."
"The best that I could do was keep Vonetta and Fern separated."
"If she asked for them, I’d give them to her, although I didn’t think she’d ask."
"Cecile couldn’t figure out how Vonetta was hers."
"That was all it took. And that made me even angrier at Vonetta. She could have done that much for her own sister."
"I wasn’t about to get a better look so I’d know the difference. Looking at that stupid boy got me red-faced in the first place."
"I knew 'rally' meant 'protest' and that 'protest' could mean 'riot.'"
"We have to look out for my sisters, you know."
"We look out for each other. The rally is one way of looking out for all of our sisters. All of our brothers. Unity, Sister Delphine. We have to stand united."
"Naughty? Your hair ain’t naughty. It ain’t misbehaving. It’s doing what God meant it to do."
"Pack light. Leave swift. I’m that type. I move."
"Kids? I don’t have no kids. They belong to the Clarks down the street."
"Each letter free to be flung to all four corners?"
"Finding the right letters, the right type, the right size."
"It's a straight ride down. Just slide your sneaker like this."
"Bringing people to this rally was magic that had you soaring above trees."
"Be eleven, Delphine. Be eleven while you can."
"I'm only eleven years old, but I do the best I can."
"It's better than what I could have given you."
"Delphine, it's a hard thing to sleep on the streets."