Quotes About Defiance

When Pa tell you to do something, you do it, he say. When he say not to, you don't. You don't do what he say, he beat you. Sometime beat me anyhow, I say, whether I do what he say or not. That's right, say Harpo. But not Sofia. She do what she want, don't pay me no mind at all. I try to beat her, she black my eyes. Oh, boo-hoo, he cry. Boo-hoo-hoo.

All my life I had to fight... But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house... I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.

And you know how some whitefolks is, won't let well enough alone. If they want to bad enough, they gon harass a blessing from you if it kill.

She standing there looking me straight in the eye. She look tired and her jaws full of air. I say it's cause I'm a fool, I say. I say it cause I'm jealous of you. I say it cause you do what I can't. What that? she say. Fight. I say.

She weak as a kitten. But her mouth just pack with claws.

She got a long pointed nose and big fleshy mouth. Lips look like black plum. Eyes big, glossy. Feverish. And mean. Like, sick as she is, if a snake cross her path, she kill it

THEY CANNOT KILL US, BECAUSE WITHOUT US THEY DIE.

RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY! it says in huge block letters.

Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them.

You a lowdown dog is what's wrong, I say. It's time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need.

She did not see why anyone should worry about her soul, even the people she marched with. "When it gives me trouble," she'd sneer, "I'll call y'all.

I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.

Every lick you hit me you will suffer twice

The jail you plan for me is the one in which you will rot

Like, sick as she is, if a snake cross her path, she kill it.

Dear God, Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me. Mr —— say, Cause she my wife. Plus, she stubborn. All women good for – he don't finish. He just tuck his chin over the paper like he do. Remind me of Pa.

I say it cause I'm a fool, I say. I say it cause I'm jealous of you. I say it cause you do what I can't. What that? she say. Fight. I say.

LA RESISTENCIA ES EL SECRETO DE LA ALEGRÍA!, dice en grandes letras de molde. Hay un estruendo como si el mundo se quebrara y abriera. Vuelvo adentro. Ya no soy más. Y estoy satisfecha.

What he beat you for? she ast. For being me and not you.

Well, you know how niggers is. Can't nobody tell 'em nothing even today. Can't be ruled. Every nigger you see got a kingdom in his head.

She say to Sofia, All your children so clean, she say, would you like to work for me, be my maid? Sofia say, Hell no. She say, What you say? Sofia say, Hell no.

Even a cornered rabbit will fight with teeth and claws.

Swearing, drunkenness, "haunting bad houses," fighting, and drawing graffiti—hugh penises were a favourite—on the palace walls were all punishable by warnings

And who would have dared refuse him? Whoever she was, Anne silently applauded her.