9 of the following 20 quotes are on the Final Exam
Good Luck
“I don’t flit! I--I experiment with different forms of expression--“
“Sometimes it’s like I can see the future stretched out in front of me – just plain as day. The
future, Mama. Hanging over there at the edge of my days. Just waiting for me – a big,
looming blank space – full of nothing.”
I say I been wrong, son. That I been doing to you what the rest of the world been doing to
you. Walter – what you ain’t never understood is that I ain’t got nothing, don’t own nothing,
ain’t never really wanted nothing that wasn’t for you. . . . There ain’t nothing worth holding
on to, money, dreams, nothing else – if it means – if it means it’s going to destroy my boy. . . .
I’m telling you to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be.”
“But you’ve got to admit that a man, right or wrong, has the right to want to have the
neighborhood he lives in a certain kind of way.”
“That’s it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your
eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your
eggs and go to work. Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking to death, baby! And his
woman say – Your eggs is getting cold!”
“So you butchered up a dream of mine- you- who always talking ‘bout your children’s
dreams...”
“When do you think is the time to love somebody the most, when they done good and
made things easy for everybody? Well, then, you ain’t through learning-- because that ain’t
the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in his self ‘cause the world done
whipped him so.”
“Now you say after me, in my mother’s house there is still God.”
“And we have decided to move into our house because my father – my father – he earned it
for us brick by brick. We don’t want to make no trouble for nobody or fight no causes, and
we will try to be good neighbors. And that’s all we got to say about that. We don’t want
your money.”
“Once upon a time freedom used to be life- now it’s money.”
“Man, I trusted you . . . Man, I put my life in your hands . . . Man . . . THAT MONEY IS MADE
OUT OF MY FATHER’S FLESH –“
“Then isn’t there something wrong in a house – in a world! – where all dreams, good or bad,
must depend on the death of a man? I never thought to see you like this, Alaiyo.”
“Damn all the eggs that ever was.”
“Independence and then what? What about all the crooks and thieves and just plain idiots
who will come into power and steal and plunder the same as before – only now they will be
black and do it in the name of the new Independence – WHAT ABOUT THEM?!”
“What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives
like you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need
for me to say it was all right for? So you butchered up a dream of mine – you – who always
talking ‘bout your children’s dreams . . .”
“Well – well! – All I can say is – if this is my time in life – MY TIME – to say good-bye – to
these goddamned cracking walls! – and these marching roaches! – and this cramped little
closet which ain’t now or never was no kitchen! . . . then I say it loud and good,
HALLELUJAH! AND GOOD-BYE MISERY . . . I DON’T NEVER WANT TO SEE YOUR UGLY
FACE AGAIN!”
"He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he? Kind of like a rainbow after the rain..."
"He talked Brotherhood. He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each
other with good Christian fellowship."