Best Quotes from Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor with Page Numbers

"Look out there, Cassie girl. All that belongs to you. 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."

"You may not understand that now, but one day you will. Then you’ll see."

"Some people around here seem to be giving themselves airs. I’ll tolerate no more of that," she scowled.

"I don’t want my book neither."

"We don’t have to accept them…and maybe we don’t either."

"I’ll give you ten seconds to pick up that book, boy, or I’m going to get my switch."

"Ain’t no need gettin’ mad," T.J. replied undaunted. "Jus’ an idea."

"Your teacher, Miss Davis, has been held up in Jackson for a few days so I’ll have the pleasure of sprinkling your little minds with the first rays of knowledge."

"Now since there’s only one of me, we shall have to sacrifice for the next few days."

"But that doesn’t mean they have to accept them…"

"Just had to come home and see ’bout my babies."

"Ain’t y’all something? Can’t hardly call y’all babies no more."

"I expect you’re right, Mama. Come Monday, we’d better haul it up to the Granger place and have it ginned."

"He’s gonna stay with us awhile."

"You’re lucky no worse happened and we’re glad to have you here…especially now."

"In this family, we don’t shop at the Wallace store."

"Your mama tells me that a lot of the older children been going up to that Wallace store after school to dance and buy their bootleg liquor and smoke cigarettes."

"There’s drinking up there and I don’t like it—and I don’t like them Wallaces either."

"I wish he could just stay…and stay…."

"Sometimes I wish we had more low cotton like down ’round Vicksburg."

"One day the sun’ll shine again and you won’t get muddy no more?"

"So ain’t no use frettin’ ’bout it. One day you’ll have a plenty of clothes and maybe even a car of yo’ own to ride ’round in, so don’t you pay no mind to them ignorant white folks."

"You jus’ keep on studyin’ and get yo’self a good education and you’ll be all right."

"This information cut deeply into Little Man’s brain, and each day when he found his clean clothes splashed red by the school bus, he became more and more embittered."

"It ain’t the end of the world."

"Ah, shoot! I sure am gettin’ tired of this mess."

"We could not outwit it."

"Come on, Man. It ain’t gonna happen no more, least not for a long while. I promise you that."

"But I got us into it."

"Ain’t no call to go blaming yourself. We all done it."

"Ain’t never no reason good enough to go disobey your mama."

"Friends gotta trust each other, Stacey, 'cause ain’t nothin' like a true friend."

"Sometimes a person’s gotta fight. But that store ain’t the place to be doing it."

"You know, I…I wasn’t hardly eighteen when Paul Edward married me…He was smart. Ow-ow, my Lord, that was one smart man!"

"He don’t know nothin’ ’bout me or this land, he think I’m gonna sell!"

"But when he got to be fourteen and his mama died, he left that place and worked his way ’cross here up to Vicksburg."

"But that store ain’t the place to be doing it. From what I hear, folks like them Wallaces got no respect at all for colored folks and they just think it’s funny when we fight each other."

"Ain’t going down there no more neither," he promised.

"I suppose you three went to the store too, huh?"

"But for some reason I could not understand he said, 'All right, Mr. Morrison, I’ll tell her.'"

"I think you forgot, but you was waiting on us ’fore you was waiting on this girl here, and we been waiting a good while now for you to get back."

"I ain’t nobody’s little nigger!"

"I already know what I am! But I betcha you don’t know what you are! And I could sure tell you, too, you ole—"

"I know it and you know it, but he don’t know it, and that’s where the trouble is."

"Do like I say."

"I’m sorry, Miz Lillian Jean," demanded Mr. Simms.

"Ain’t nobody gonna mess with me... I wouldn’t need nobody."

"You just get your little black self back over there and wait some more."

"It sure ain’t nothing to shout about."

"We’ll do all right. I got me some regular customers and they’ll check to see if I’m here ’fore they buy."

"Everybody born on this earth is something and nobody, no matter what color, is better than anybody else."

"You may have to call Lillian Jean 'Miss' because the white people say so, but you'll also call our own young ladies at church 'Miss' because you really do respect them."

"In fact, he thinks she’s better than Stacey or Little Man or Christopher-John—just ’cause she’s his daughter?"

"There’s no maybe to it."

"What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we’re here."

"But they didn’t teach us Christianity to save our souls, but to teach us obedience."

"That ole scrawny, chicken-legged, snaggle-toothed, cross—"

"You think my brother died and I got my leg half blown off in their German war to have some red-neck knock Cassie around anytime it suits him?"

"But, Mama, it ain’t fair. I didn’t do nothin’ to that confounded Lillian Jean."

"Because he’s one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big."

In this house we do not give away what loved ones give to us.

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.

It seems to me you wanted that coat when I gave it to you, ain’t that right?

Then if you want something and it’s a good thing and you got it in the right way, you better hang on to it and don’t let nobody talk you out of it.

You care what a lot of useless people say ’bout you you’ll never get anywhere.

If you ain’t got the brains of a flea to see that this T.J. fellow made a fool of you, then you’ll never get anywhere in this world.

We ain’t never gonna lose this land.

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.

I want these children to know we tried, and what we can’t do now, maybe one day they will.

You being white, you can just ’bout plan on anything you want. But I tell you this one thing: You plan on getting this land, you’re planning on the wrong thing.

"After all, I’m who I am and you’re who you are."

"The way I see it, we all gotta do what we gotta do. And that’s what I’m gonna do from now on. Just what I gotta."

"God wants all his children to do what’s right."

"Forgiving is not letting something nag at you—rotting you out."

"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 just do that and I’m gonna make sure all your fancy friends know how you keeps a secret."

"It was just a part of her being Mama. But now that she could not teach, I felt resentful and angry."

"Your mama…she’s born to teaching like the sun is born to shine."

"You the one turned, T.J. Now leave us alone. We don’t want no more to do with you."

"It keeps on blooming, bearing good fruit year after year, knowing all the time it’ll never get as big as them other trees. Just keeps on growing and doing what it gotta do. It don’t give up."

"You were born blessed, boy, with land of your own. If you hadn’t been, you’d cry out for it while you try to survive…like Mr. Lanier and Mr. Avery."

"But right now, pretty lady... right now I’ve got better things to think about."

"They go on that chain gang and their families got nothing."

"It’s hard on a man to give up, but sometimes it seems there just ain’t nothing else he can do."

"Well, look-a-here! Good ole butter beans and cornbread!"

"Just because them Wallaces threaten them one time they go jumping all over themselves to get out like a bunch of scared jackrabbits—"

"Some folks just like to keep other folks around to laugh at them…use them."

"But, Papa, we planted more cotton this year. Won’t that pay the taxes?"

"I wonder how come T.J. don’t know they laughing at him?"

"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."

"I guess you’re right."

"He’s got a need to show us where we stand in the scheme of things. He’s got a powerful need to do that. Besides, he still wants this place."

"You ain’t never had no children of my own. I think sometimes if I had, I’d’ve wanted a son and daughter just like you and Mr. Logan…and grandbabies like these babies of yours…."

"Don’t ask me to go."

"I told the boy it wasn’t his fault. He just wasn’t strong enough to hold Jack."

"Well, not for what he got in mind. He thought he’d plant himself some summer corn. It’ll be ready come September."

"I think when I grow up I’m gonna build me a house in some trees and jus’ live there all the time."

"I don’t think it will be…unless you stay."

"Mama, you want me to take it to court?"

But I ain’t gonna let him turn me ’round.

You gotta help me.

I ain’t no bed!

You ain’t going without me.

If Stacey was going to be a fool and go running out into the night to take an even bigger fool home, the least I could do was make sure he got back in one piece.

You sure you ain’t lying, T.J.?

He’s hurt bad, Cassie. I gotta get him home.

I ain’t going without you!

Trust me, will ya?

We had to reach Papa.

"I’ll do what I have to do, Mary…and so will you."

"They’re going to learn right here and now there ain’t gonna be no T.J.s in this house."

"But, fool or not, I can’t just sit by and let them kill the boy."

"The fire’s got to be stopped."

"You set one foot from this house and I’m going to skin you alive…do you hear me now?"

"Perhaps…" he started, then was quiet.

"I’ll go in with them."

"T.J.’s all right. The sheriff and Mr. Jamison took him into Strawberry."

"It shouldn’t be."

"I cried for T.J. For T.J. and the land."