The Street Quotes
"It rattled the tops of garbage cans, sucked window shades out through the top of opened windows and set them flapping back against the windows."
"It wrapped newspaper around their feet entangling them until the people cursed deep in their throats, stamped their feet, kicked at the paper."
"Each time she thought she had the sign in focus, the wind pushed it away from her so that she wasn’t certain whether it said three rooms or two rooms."
"It was three rooms. The wind held it still for an instant in front of her and then swooped it away until it was standing at an impossible angle on the rod that suspended it from the building."
"Steam heat meant a rattling, clanging noise in radiators early in the morning and then a hissing that went on all day."
"Respectable tenants in these houses where colored people were allowed to live included anyone who could pay the rent."
"The thing that really mattered was getting away from Fop and his raddled women, and anything was better than that."
"But almost anything. So she turned toward the entrance of the building."
"She began to wonder how the woman could sit by an open window on a cold, windy night like this one."
"Her voice was rich. Pleasant. Yet the longer Lutie looked at her, the less she liked her."
"The woman’s eyes. They were as still and as malignant as the eyes of a snake."
"‘Just ring the Super’s bell, dearie,’ the woman repeated."
"She pushed the door open and walked inside and stood there nodding her head."
"The stairs went up steeply—dark high narrow steps."
"She leaned over to look at the names on the mail boxes."
"There were only two apartments on the first floor."
"A Mrs. Hedges lived in One B. The name was printed on the card."
"The dog moved back to the window, shrinking and walking in such a way that she thought if he were human he’d walk backward."
"Her grip on the subway strap tightened until the hard enameled surface cut into her hand."
"Yet what else could she have done? It was her fault, really, that they lost their one source of income."
"Living here is like living in a tent with everything that goes on inside it open to the world because the flap won’t close."
"She was suddenly proud of him, glad that he was hers and filled with a strong determination to do a good job of bringing him up."
"What’s the Super saying things like that to Bub for? And she was conscious of a stabbing fear that made her tighten her arm around Bub’s shoulder."
"She leaned farther out the window to see the dogs Bub had mentioned. They were sleeping in curled-up positions."
"It seems like life is going past me so fast that I’ll never catch up with it, and it wouldn’t matter particularly, but I can’t see anything ahead of me except these walls that push in against me."
"She had been so dead set on moving away from Pop and Lil, getting this apartment for herself and Bub, that she hadn’t stopped to figure out what was to happen next."
"Sometimes standing out on the street like this, he forgot she was there, and he would stare hungry-eyed at the women who went past."
"There ain’t no point in you gettin’ het up over her. She’s marked down for somebody else."
"But as she looked, she thought it had become one yard, for the rusted tin cans, the piles of ashes, the pieces of metal from discarded automobiles, had disregarded the fences."
"You see, colored people have been shining shoes and washing clothes and scrubbing floors for years and years. White people seem to think that’s the only kind of work they’re fit to do. The hard work. The dirty work. The work that pays the least."
"That’s why there wasn’t any sound outside. Because there was a solid wall in back of the curtains."
"Her husband. Jones wasn’t her husband any more than any of those others she had lived with in between."
"She hadn’t seen her husband in twenty-five years."
"With a man attached to her she could have an apartment—a real home."
"Every morning put one drop of this red liquid in his coffee. Just one drop. No more."
"As for the powder—it’s very powerful. You only need a little of it at a time."
"The satisfaction she felt was from the quiet way he had listened to her, giving her all of his attention."
"He was waiting, watching to see whether she would nibble at it or whether he would have to use a different bait."
"Money could make a white cop almost smile when he caught a black man speeding."
"She had gone past the bakery shop again the next afternoon. The windows had been smashed, the front door had apparently been broken in, because it was boarded up."
"Two police cars with their engines running were drawn up in front of the store. There were two cops right in front of the door, swinging nightsticks."
"Lutie moved uneasily on the bed. She pulled the robe more tightly around her. All of these streets were filled with violence, she thought."
"She and Bub sat on the long bench in the center of the waiting room. There were two people ahead of them, and she waited impatiently."
"The old man remained completely oblivious to the movement around him. The focus of his eyes never shifted from the expanse of wall in front of him."
"Lutie had hoped that she would be able to get Bub into the emergency room before the ambulance came back."
"Bub stood up and looked around. 'What was the matter with her?' he asked. 'She got hurt.'"
"Lutie sat motionless staring into the dark. She was cold and yet she didn’t move."
"It was early when she woke up the next morning and she yawned and stretched and tried to remember what it was that had given her this feeling of anticipation."
"Finally it seemed to him that he met it at every turn. Wherever he looked, he saw a suggestion of its outline."
"DESPITE the lateness of the hour, groups of men were still standing in front of the Junto Bar and Grill."
"The street had that same soft, clinging warmth. It seemed to be everywhere around him."
"Jubilee was sitting in the big upholstered chair. She had a funny kind of smile on her face."
"A man was going swiftly down the fire escape. Not looking up, climbing steadily down, down."
"The instant he got the door open, he knew there was something wrong."
"He could sit forever at that table and nobody would look at him twice."
"The druggist applied a styptic pencil. 'You oughtta see a doctor,' he said."
"She wasn’t worth going to the clink for. She was a raggle-tag slut, and he was well rid of her."
"‘You ain’t worth cutting, baby,’ he said. ‘You ain’t worth going to jail for. You ain’t worth nothing.’"
"The sound of Jubilee’s sobbing followed him down the hall."
"It’s funny with all that noise and screaming no one had tried to find out what was going on."
"It’s such a simple, reasonable reason. And just thinking about it will make your legs stop trembling like the legs of a winded, blown, spent horse."
"The women work because the white folks give them jobs—washing dishes and clothes and floors and windows."
"The sight of the people edging toward the car parked at the curb set the two men to moving with speed, with haste, with a dispatch that landed Bub on the seat between them, closed the car door."
"He couldn’t move away from here now. He had to stay and watch her and laugh at her efforts to get Bub out of it."
"She held the crisp, crackling white paper in her hand. And they recognized it for what it was—a symbol of doom—for the law and bad trouble were in the long white paper."
"He had to be careful what he said. He had to go slow. Take it easy."
"This lavish use of light is senseless, she thought. You used to lecture him about leaving lights on at night because the bill would be so big you couldn’t pay it."
"The room still didn’t look right. The wood of the desk was dull oak. It was grimy. It had no shine to it."
"The room was full of the sound. The thin walls echoed and re-echoed with it two, three floors below and one floor above."
"Somebody else’s kitchen was a painfully circumscribed area for a kid to grow up in, but at least it would be safe."
"Going to sleep with that warm sound clinging to your ears made fear impossible."
"When there was no one in a house with you, it took on a strange emptiness."
"When people are alone, they are always afraid of the dark."
"It was her fault he’d got into this trouble... It was always the mother’s fault when a kid got into trouble."
"And while you were out working to pay the rent on this stinking, rotten place, why, the street outside played nursemaid to your kid."
"Because we’re like animals trying to pull all the soft, quivering tissue deep inside of us away from the danger."
"All of us started with a little piece of trouble, and then bit by bit more was added until finally it grew so great it pushed us into this room."
"She was afraid of something. What was it? She didn’t know."
"Perhaps it was better to take things as they were and not try to change them."
"But who wouldn’t have wanted to live in a better house than this one and who wouldn’t have struggled to get out of it?"