Kathryn Stockett
When Demetrie got sick, we knew it was our responsibility to take care of her and pay her medical bills. And we embraced that. But the tricky part is, like so many families in the South, we also expected her to use a separate bathroom, to use separate utensils.Collection: Medical
As I wrote, I found that Aibileen had some things to say that really weren't in her character. She was older, soft-spoken, and she started showing some attitude.Collection: Attitude
It can be really powerful to write something when you're sad.Collection: Sad
Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.Collection: Women
Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.Collection: Writing
Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?Collection: Life
I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.Collection: Book
....I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.Collection: Believe
Who knew paper and ink could be so viciousCollection: Ink
It seems like at some point you'd run out of awful.Collection: Running
Great books give you a feeling that you miss all day, until you finally get to crawl back inside those pages again.Collection: Book
And if your friends make fun of you for chasing your dream, remember—just lie.Collection: Dream
You is kind. You is smart. You is important.Collection: Kindness
All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries.Collection: Kindness
All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.Collection: Girl
You're gon' have to say to your self, am I gon' believe what them fools say about me today?Collection: Believe
There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism.(Howell Raines's Pulitzer Prize winning article "Grady's Gift")-Sockett admired this quote and used it in her summary.Collection: Winning
I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it.Collection: Dark
Cause everbody care. Black, white, deep down we all do.Collection: White
I was surprise to see the world didn't stop just cause my boy did.Collection: Boys
I grew up in the 1970s, but I don't think a whole lot had changed from the '60s. Oh, it had changed in the law books - but not in the kitchens of white homes.Collection: Book
...out of the blue, he kissed me. Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body-my skin, my collarbone, the hollow backs of my knees, everything inside of me filled up with light.Collection: Light
She already got the blue dress on I ironed this morning, the one with sixty-five pleats on the waist, so tiny I got to squint through my glasses to iron. I don’t hate much in life, but me and that dress is not on good terms.Collection: Morning
The point is, I can’t tell you how to succeed. But I can tell you how not to: Give in to the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript—or painting, song, voice, dance moves, [insert passion here]—in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it for good. I guarantee you that it won’t take you anywhere. Or you could do what this writer did: Give in to your obsession instead.Collection: Song
I'd cry, if only I had the time to do it.Collection: Cry
Down in the national news section, there's an article on a new pill, the 'Valium' they're calling it, 'to help women cope with everyday challenges.' God, I could use about ten of those little pills right now.Collection: Challenges
I used to believe in em (lines). I don't anymore. They in our heads. Lines between black and white ain't there neither. Some folks just made those up, long time ago. And that go for the white trash and the so-ciety ladies too.Collection: Believe
The day your child says she hates you, and every child will go through the phase, it kicks like a foot in the stomach.Collection: Children
They say it's like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime.Collection: Helping
Everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it.Collection: White
Stuart needs "space" and "time," as if this were physics and not a human relationship.Collection: Relationship
If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate.Collection: Color
Sorry is the fool who ever underestimates my mother.Collection: Mother
They say it's like true love, good help. you only get one in a lifetime.....there is so much you don't know about a person. i wonder if i could've made her days a little bit easier, if I'd tried. if i'd treated her a little nicer.Collection: Littles
I listened wide-eyed, stupid. Glowing by her voice in the dim light. If chocolate was a sound, it would've been Constantine's voice singing. If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate.Collection: Stupid
What you learn today?" I ask even though she ain't in real school, just the pretend kind. Other day, when I ask her, she say, "Pilgrims. They came over and nothing would grow so they ate the Indians." Now knew them Pilgrims didn't eat no Indians. But that ain't the point.Collection: Real
Because ain’t that white people for you, wondering if they are happy enough.Collection: White
And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.Collection: Lines
Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.Collection: Mother
I nursed a worthless, pint drinker for twelve years and when my lazy, life-sucking, daddy finally died, I swore to God with tears in my eyes I'd never marry one. And then I did.Collection: Eye
[Crisco] ain't just for frying. You ever get a sticky something stuck in your hair,like gum?...That's right, Crisco. Spread this on a baby's bottom, you won't even know what diaper rash is...shoot, I seen ladies rub it under they eyes and on they husband's scaly feet...Clean the goo from a price tag, take the squeak out a door hinge. Lights get cut off, stick a wick in it and burn it like a candle....And after all that, it'll still fry your chicken.Collection: Baby
Baby Girl," I say. "I need you remember everything I told you. Do you remember what I told you?" She still crying steady, but the hiccups are gone. "To wipe my bottom good when I'm done?" "No, baby, the other one. About who you are.Collection: Girl
She hug me around my neck, say, "You're righter than Miss Taylor." I tear up then. My cup is spilling over. Those is new words to me.Collection: Missing
Why don't we just build you an house outside Hilly?Collection: House
I've become one of those people who prowl around at night in their cars. God, I am the town's Boo Radley, just like in To Kill A Mockingbird.Collection: Night
Only three things them ladies talk about: they kids, they clothes, and they friends. I hear the word Kennedy, I know they ain’t discussing no politic. They talking about what Miss Jackie done wore on the tee-vee.Collection: Kids
Having a separate bathroom for the black domestic was just the way things were done. It had faded out in new homes by the time the '70s and '80s rolled up.Collection: Home
Here's to new beginnings," Stuart says and raises his bourbon. I nod, sort of wanting to tell him that all beginnings are new.Collection: New Beginnings
It can be really powerful to write something when youre sad.Collection: Powerful
I started writing it the day after Sept. 11. I was living in New York City. We didnt have any phone service and we didnt have any mail. Like a lot of writers do, I started to write in a voice that I missed.Collection: New York