How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Line)
Quote #1
Mama lost one baby before I was born. Her name was Lila and she died when she was a month old. Something about her lungs. Something about her blood. We don't talk about her much. But there are pictures. Sometimes Mama kisses my palms and calls me God's gift. (4.31)
Talk about turning lemons into lemonade. Instead of feeling bitter about having lost a child, Frannie's mama just showers more love on her two kids and sees them as special miracles.
Quote #2
"Are you?" Rayray asked him. "You aren't saying you're like God's son, are you?"
"I don't think it matters," Ms. Johnson said. "What matters is—"
"Aren't we all God's children?" Samantha said quietly. She looked around the room, taking us all in. "Each of you," she said, "is a true child of God." (4.38-40)
The kids in Frannie's class are confused as to whether Jesus Boy is really Jesus, or if he's just some kid who wants to go by this odd moniker. Is he here to teach them important lessons and show them how to be good Christians?
Quote #3
I don't know if I believe in miracles. I think things happen and we need to believe in them. But sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I'll catch Lila smiling at me, her head covered with jet-black curls, her lips curling up over her tiny toothless mouth, her tiny hands reaching. (5.3)
Even though Frannie isn't always sure about where she stands on religion, she still believes that her dead sister is watching over her family. She's not a creepy spirit—she's more like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Quote #4
Most Sundays, I could find a hundred excuses not to go to church with my parents. Even Sean got up to go more than me. (6.20)
Frannie is not exactly the church-going type. Her parents are more religious, but Frannie prefers to work things out on her own; she doesn't want to be told what to feel and believe in.
Quote #5
I stood there watching her walk away. It was that she did believe that the Jesus Boy was really Jesus—it was that she could. I couldn't. No way. It was too crazy, too way out there. Too… far away for me. (6.53)
Well, that's a far-out conspiracy theory: Apparently, Samantha thinks that Jesus Boy is the actual Jesus. Now she's on some faith-based quest to prove it, and Frannie finds the whole thing highly improbable. But what does she know? She's bad at the whole religion thing.
Quote #6
I wanted powers like that. If I could walk through the world and just touch people and lift their pains right out of their bodies, I'd never stop walking. (9.22)
Just because Frannie isn't religious doesn't mean that she isn't a good person. One of her goals in life is to walk around the world and take away people's pain. This is a girl who's made for the Peace Corps.
Quote #7
"Not the snow," I said. "The feeling. It felt holy. All peaceful and quiet. All promising. It made me think that must be what you feel when you stand in the school yard reading your Bible or sit in your daddy's church listening to him promise the whole congregation… something… something better coming along." (12.27)
Samantha goes to church to feel good and holy, and Frannie goes outside to look at all the snow that's fallen over their world. Is one a more valid spiritual experience than the other? Frannie doesn't think so.
Quote #8
"Strange," Samantha said. "How one day you can believe in something. And then the next day you don't anymore."
[…] "And then when you don't have that thing to believe in anymore, you don't have anything." (16.8-9)
Samantha is always caught up in believing certain things, and so when she finds out that Jesus Boy isn't actually Jesus, she's devastated. What is she supposed to believe in now? Where's her special miracle?
Quote #9
"But you don't even hardly go to church," Samantha said.
I picked up one of the crackers, then put it down again. Mr. Hungry wasn't anywhere to be found anymore. I couldn't believe I had to explain what I didn't know how to explain. I'd figured Samantha would just understand—deep inside. Of all people. (19.13-14)
It just doesn't make any sense to Samantha that Frannie would be the "good" person in their class. It's not like she's been showing Mother Teresa levels of piety and holiness—she's just a normal girl.
Quote #10
"Maybe he is. Maybe there's a little bit of Jesus inside of all of us. Maybe Jesus is just that something good or something sad or something… something that stays with us and makes us do stuff like help Trevor up even though he's busy cursing us out. Or maybe… maybe Jesus is just that thing you had when the Jesus Boy first got here, Samantha. Maybe Jesus is the hope that you were feeling." (19.24)
Frannie tries to explain to Samantha that maybe Jesus is more of an abstract concept; maybe he is the goodness that lives inside every person. Samantha doesn't accept this, though. She's a more literal Bible reader.