Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? Quotes
"The cameras are going to be aggressive. First photos will go for upwards of two hundred thousand dollars."
"I don’t plan on leaving the gates. We don’t want to feed the flame."
"The when is not so important as the effect on headlines."
"Being nominated, and winning, is our primary goal."
"Now the Internet’s going to be flooded with hypothetical stories about my wedding, when it’s supposed to be flooded with news about my movie."
"Celebrity was an image, an ideal model. It was a title that wore you, heavy like a crown, except your skin became the costume; your face, the mask."
"Death took Kitty in the middle of the night, so silent, so quick that Elise slept through it, cocooned in the covers on the floor."
"She was a witness to the evil and godliness of men. She witnessed Jesus’s murder and was the first to witness his Resurrection."
"Hazel, knowing how much the Lakes boys adored Bessie, skipped the funeral, unsure."
"Let people think whatever they want to think about you. It’s none of their business anyway. You learn to fit in, wherever you happen to be."
"There are some truths in life you better come around to accepting sooner than later. This is one."
"Fame begot privilege, but you traded it for freedom."
"Kitty simply didn’t have much admiration for the human race, and with the exception of a handful of people, she wanted to be left alone."
"You have to feel like you belong somewhere, Mary."
"Opportunity beyond the South is a farce."
"A man without a dream isn’t one worth having."
"You’ve been taught well to keep to yourself."
"Being Negro was akin to being a jack-in-the-box."
"The mothers had made a pact to send their daughters out into the world together."
"Traits skip generations—who knows what the baby will come out looking like."
"I grew up living in a house with my momma, my father, his wife, and their eight kids."
"Why should we carry the bad things with us?"
"Kitty was a friend to me, and now that she’s gone, I realize I’ve lost the closest thing that I had to a mother."
"Her disease had turned her into a social butterfly who continuously met everyone for the first time."
"I don’t know how many times I have to tell you not to mix the truth with a lie."
"Haven’t you heard the stories about what happens to people caught passing?"
"There was nothing about being Negro that was good for me."
"Sometimes it’s easier to tell secrets to a stranger."
"I’m thousands of miles from home, from anyone who knows me. Emma’s my only family now."
"I want this studio to be the first one anyone ever thinks about when they think about film."
"It’s a boardinghouse for women who are passing."
"We belong to an underground resistance that spans the United States."
"Passing is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s survival."
"The way you dress is a message to the world."
"The proposal was Emma’s greatest chance for happiness before Judy’s wedding, paramount for Kitty’s peace."
"That’s why I plan to be rich. Can’t depend on any man."
"You’d be surprised to know what people throw away."
"Guess we’ll have to make sure the coincidence is on their part."
"Tell them it was a one-time gesture, to pay homage to your father, and your focus is at the executive level. No one will question that."
"You, my dear, are going to make us all a ton of money."
"LA is big, but it’s small. Especially among Colored folk."
"She’s dead, and still, her presence is like a ghost."
"Things won’t be better for any of us until they’re better for all of us."
"I can’t pretend anymore. I’m miserable in this so-called charmed life."
"Art is supposed to speak about the times, to mean something."
"Life is about timing; you know that much by now."
"I lost some things but I gained a lot too. That’s how everyone’s life goes."
"In my memoirs is everything I never got the chance to tell your mother. It’ll all make sense after you read."
"The confession clarified their family dynamics—Kitty’s hovering over their lives, her sisterlike relationship with Nellie, and their mother’s consistent emotional distance from Kitty—but exposed layers of pain that further complicated the present."
"As Negro women, we make hard decisions."
"Pain like ours makes people uncomfortable."
"In my jail, we have rules. He knows I won’t stand for cheating."
"I worked too hard to have her growing up feeling like she’s less of a human than anybody else. She’s royalty, goddamn it."
"Things happen before you’re ready—most times, before you know they’re happening."
"Our daughter should be enough of a cause for you."
"People are dying—have died—all over the country for the simplest of things. For the right to be, to exist!"
"That’s what you think you’ve accomplished here? We never would have been in this mess had you not lied about the simplest of things."
"I miss her so much, but her death—God, strike me down for feeling this way—it relieved me from the heaviness I’ve felt my whole life."
"What makes you think Kitty wanted her legacy reduced to a stereotype? She’ll be painted as the tragic mulatto."
"I’m mad that she had no choice but to do what she did. I’m mad that her having no choice impacted me in the ways it has. Unleashing this story exposes the White roots that burrow, snake, and choke."
"Kitty, have you ever considered how she’ll feel, learning we let the world think she was dead because she was too dark?"
"That’s the thing about lies; you have to keep them alive."
"Feeling claustrophobic under the spotlight, she tore the netted neck of her dress down over her shoulders."
"The FBI doesn’t just show up to fish for information."
"This is what I meant by your privilege."