Quotes from Rita Williams-Garcia

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.

It was a strange, wonderful feeling. To discover eyes upon you when you expected no one to notice you at all.

A name is important. It isn't something you drop in the litter basket or on the ground. Your name is now people know you. The very mention of your name makes a picture spring to mind, whether it's a picture of clashing fists or a mighty mountain that can't be knocked down. Your name is who you are and how you're known even when you do something great or something dumb.

Saying "please" without saying it to someone you don't want to say "please" to in the first place tops the list of hard.

I just took the box and nodded, because that's how you treat crazy people. You nod and count down twenty-seven days for crazy to come to an end.

Today we're going to be like the earth, spinning around and affecting many.

If you knew what I knew, seen what I've seen, you wouldn't be so quick to pull the plow.

That was how I knew Sister Mukumbo was a real teacher, aside from her welcoming smile and her blackboard penmanship. She asked a teacher's type of question. The kind that says: Join in.

We didn't come for the revolution. We came for breakfast.

Mommy gets up to give you a glass of water in the middle of the night. Mom invites your friends inside when it's raining. Mama burns your ears with the hot comb to make your hair look pretty for class picture day. Ma is sore and worn out from wringing your wet clothes and hanging them to dry; Ma needs peace and quiet at the end of the day. We don't have one of those. We have a statement of fact.

I had a lot of those memories clicking before me like projector slides in the dark. Lots of pictures, smells and sounds flashing in and out.

I pressed and I prayed. It was only right that pressing went with prayer. That and being sorry. Every wrinkle was a patch of sorry to be smoothed and flattened.

mixing comes natural. i just ought to. not am i mixed to perfection, i have aptitude for art and colors.

I didn't want to say Big Ma was right. Cecile was no kind of mother. Cecile didn't want us. Cecile was crazy. I didn't have to.

That was how I knew Sister Mukumbu was a real teacher, aside from her welcoming smile and her blackboard penmanship. She asked a teacher's type of question. The kind that says: Join in.

She refused to call Fern by her name, and that made Big Ma right about Cecile.

I remember a time when smoke filled the house. Not coughing smoke but smoke from a woman's smooth-voiced singing, with piano, bass, and drums. All together these sounds made smoke. Uncle Darnell would say, "You can't remember that. You were two. Three, maybe." But I do. I still see, hear, and feel bits and flashes. The sounds of musical smoke.

felt, he couldn't start crying. He didn't want anyone to see him cry and feel sorry for him. Most important,

Garcia One Crazy Summer P.S. Be Eleven Gone Crazy in Alabama Blue Tights Every Time a Rainbow Dies Fast Talk on a Slow Track Jumped Like Sisters on the Homefront No Laughter Here

Heckle and Jeckle again

Thank goodness you can't see cherries in a chocolate bar. I'd have been a red-faced rose if not for my Hershey brown complexion

I slept lightly, expecting Fern to awaken during the night missing her truelove. Not that I wanted Fern to be heartbroken. I didn't want her to love someone all her life and then not love or want them at all.

We're trying to break yokes. You're trying to make one for yourself.

There was also one Anthony, whose mama could spell, and one Antnee, whose mama couldn't. It