Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry Quotes
"You ain't never had to live on nobody's place but your own and long as I live and the family survives, you'll never have to. That's important."
"They give us these ole books when they didn't want 'em no more."
"Y’all go ahead and get dirty if y’all wanna. Me, I’m gonna stay clean."
"If that’s the case, Daisy, I don’t think I need that little bit of food."
"But that doesn’t mean they have to accept them…and maybe we don’t either."
"I always knew Cassie was rather high-strung, but Little Man! He’s always such a perfect little gentleman."
"Friends gotta trust each other, Stacey, 'cause ain't nothin' like a true friend."
"Because he thinks Lillian Jean is better than you are, Cassie, and when you..."
"Sometimes a person's gotta fight. But that store ain't the place to be doing it."
"You see, Cassie, many years ago when our people were first brought from Africa in chains to work as slaves in this country..."
"It's tough out there, boy, and as long as there are people, there's gonna be somebody trying to take what you got and trying to drag you down."
"If you remember nothing else in your whole life, Cassie girl, remember this: We ain't never gonna lose this land."
"What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we're here."
"White is something just like black is something. Everybody born on this earth is something and nobody, no matter what color, is better than anybody else."
"We ain't never gonna lose this land. You believe that?"
"I already know what I am! But I betcha you don't know what you are!"
"This book is the property of Miss Cassie Deborah Logan. Christmas, 1933."
"You have to demand respect in this world, ain't nobody just gonna hand it to you. How you carry yourself, what you stand for—that's how you gain respect. But, little one, ain't nobody's respect worth more than your own."
"There are things you can't back down on, things you gotta take a stand on. But it's up to you to decide what them things are."
"You could be right 'bout Jeremy making a much finer friend than T.J. ever will be. The trouble is, down here in Mississippi, it costs too much to find out."
"The Bible didn't mean for you to be no fool. Now one day, maybe I can forgive John Andersen for what he done to these trees, but I ain't gonna forget it."
"We keep doing what we gotta, and we don't give up. We can't."
"I figure forgiving is not letting something nag at you—rotting you out."
"You see blacks hanging 'round with whites, they're headed for trouble. Maybe one day whites and blacks can be real friends, but right now the country ain't built that way."
"We’ve got roots that run deep, and we belong in that yard as much as that oak and walnut."
"Them men, they doing what they’ve gotta do. You got any idea what a risk they took just to go shopping in Vicksburg in the first place?"
"I reckon we know that," said Uncle Hammer.
"Sometimes I think I can even see all the way over to y’all’s place."
"Well…maybe I can’t see it, but that don’t keep me from pretending I do."
"Papa had disappeared within himself and he took no notice of us at first."
"They tell you?" he asked of Mr. Morrison, his voice curt, angry.
"Don’t you understand I don’t want you dead?"
"What good’s a car? It can’t grow cotton. You can’t build a home on it. And you can’t raise four fine babies in it."
"It was more than just church services; it was the year’s only planned social event, disrupting the humdrum of everyday country life."
"I admit I lied ’bout tellin’ on your mama, but I ain’t lyin’ now, I ain’t!"
"That boy’s gotten mighty grown," Papa said, clearly angry.
"T.J.’s all right. The sheriff and Mr. Jamison took him into Strawberry."
"I ain’t never lied to y’all, y’all know that."
"All I can say, Cassie girl…is that it shouldn’t be."
"I cried for those things which had happened in the night and would not pass."
"I cried for T.J. For T.J. and the land."