Bastard Out of Carolina Quotes

Family is family, but even love can't keep people from eating at each other. (1.46)

My aunts treated my uncles like over-grown boys—rambunctious teenagers whose antics were more to be joked at than worried over—and they seemed to think of themselves that way too. They looked y...

"Now you look like a Boatwright," she said. "Now you got the look. You're as old as you're ever gonna get, girl. This is the way you'll look till you die." (1.35)

In my imagination I was proud and defiant. I'd stare back at him with my teeth set, making no sound at all, no shameful scream, no begging. Those who watched admired me and hated him. (8.43)

Love, at least love for a man not already part of the family, was something I was a little unsure about. Aunt Alma said love had more to do with how pretty a body was than anyone would ever admit [...

Mama hated to be called trash, hated the memory of every day she'd ever spent bent over other peoples' peanuts and strawberry plants while they stood tall and looked at her like she was a rock on t...

"An't nobody says nothing to my little sister, an't nobody can touch that girl or what's hers. You just better watch yourself around her."You better. You better. You just better watch yourself arou...

An't it time the Lord did something, rained fire and retribution on Greenville County? An't there sin enough, grief enough, inch by inch of pain enough? An't the measure made yet? (1.72)

It was like sex, that food, too good to waste on the middle of the day and a roomful of men too tired to taste […] He began to feel for the first time like one of the boys, a grown man accepted b...