How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Mama always said barefoot and pregnant was not my style. She knew.
It was in this frame of mind that I made it to my last year of high school without event. Believe me in those days the girls were dropping by the wayside like seeds off a poppyseed bun and you learned to look at every day as a prize. You'd made it that far. (1.9-10)
In Pittman County, teenage pregnancy is enough to derail a young woman's life for good. For most of Taylor's friends and classmates, getting pregnant means having to quit high school and get married—two circumstances that will trap a young woman in Pittman County forever, from Taylor's point of view.
Quote #2
It wasn't the kindest thing, maybe, but at one point I actually asked her, "Jolene, why Newt?" She was slumped down and rocking a little bit in the chair, holding her hurt shoulder and looking at her feet. She had these eyes that never seemed to open all the way.
What she said was "Why not, my daddy'd been calling me a slut practically since I was thirteen, so why the hell not? Newt was just who it happened to be. You know the way it is."
I told her I didn't know, because I didn't have a daddy. That I was lucky that way. She said yeah. (1.40-42)
Taylor's narration makes it clear that she used to care a lot about who her father was. As a child being raised by a single mother, she wanted to know more about the other side of the miracle of life. In this moment, though, Taylor realizes how lucky she's been to be raised by a caring mother, and to be spared from the kind of abusive father figure that so many of her friends and classmates have endured.
Quote #3
She said, "What do you do if I let the air out of the front tire?" Which she did. I said, "Easy, I put on the spare," which believe it or not that damned old car actually had.
Then she let out the back one too and said, "Now what?" Mama had evidently run into trouble along these lines, at some point in her life with Foster and an Oldsmobile, and she wanted to be sure I was prepared. (1.49-50)
Taylor's Mama takes a hands-on approach to preparing Taylor for the world. Rather than teaching Taylor to rely on others for help, Alice Greer shows her daughter that practical skills and self-reliance will see her through.