Quotes About Defiance

Undisciplined, determined to be free.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.

I don't give a damn if there's any hope for them or not. But I know that I am not about to be bugged by any more white jokers who still can't figure out whether I'm human or not. If they don't know, baby, sad on them, and I hope they drop dead slowly, in great pain.

Not only was I not born to be a slave: I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave-master. They had, the masters, incontestably, the rope—in time, with enough, they would hang themselves with it. They were not to hang me : I was to see to that.

They had the judges, the juries, the shotguns, the law—in a word, power. But it was a criminal power, to be feared but not respected, and to be outwitted in any way whatever.

I was icily determined—more determined, really, than I then knew—never to make my peace with the ghetto but to die and go to Hell before I would let any white man spit on me, before I would accept my place in this republic.

And he suddenly takes the bag of tomatoes and smashes them against the nearest wall. Thank God the wall is blank, thank God it is now beginning to be dark. Thank God tomatoes spatter but do not ring.

I just decided me one day that I was going to get to know everything them white bastards knew, and I was going to get to know it better than them, so could no white son-of-a-bitch nowhere never talk me down, and never make me feel like I was dirt, when I could read him the alphabet, back, from, and sideways. Shit-he weren't going to beat my ass, then. And if he tried to kill me. I'd take him with me, I swear to my mother I would.

I had one margarita, though we all knew it was against the goddamn motherfucking shiteating law, and Fonny had a whiskey because at 21 you have a legal right to drink.

He smiled—smiled like someone who, faced with the total inadequacy of the opposition, is prepared to drop the argument.

If they come for you in the morning, they'll be coming for us that night.

Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is

Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is. (1879-1958)

I've never been given to casual use of vulgar language--unwarranted profanity implies mental laziness--but there's no other way to say this: a guy tries to fuck me ... well, fuck him.

Never did I fight for the poor. I fought against the rich--which of course isn't at all the same thing. In any case, the fighting was the point. You don't fight to become free--to fight is to be free. A man with a gun and the will to use it can't be mastered, he can only be killed.

Let's piss on the bargain.

I can't use hope against swords.

I didn't know what was going on, didn't understand a bit of it, didn't like any of it. Maybe that's why the first thing I packed was my guns. If your brain won't work, wave a gun around. Sometimes that helps.

This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.

I think love is a rare thing in the World. If you think you have it with this Girl, then fuck whoever tries to stop you and fuck their Rules. Take the risk and do whatever you can do and try not to get caught. If you do get caught, do it again.

I say to myself if you believe deeply in your heart you must defy, and if you are willing to pay for your defiance, you must always do it, even though the pain may be much. Too many times in our lives we do not do it, and we pay even more...

I wasn't an Uncle Tom and I never was gonna be.

I was completely unconventional in everything, which my mother found very difficult. I was a huge tomboy.

A hero has faced it all: he need not be undefeated, but he must be undaunted.