How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Stanza)
Quote #4
I can almost forgive him the taking of Ma's money, / I can almost forgive him his night in Guymon, / getting drunk. / But as long as I live, / no matter how big a hole he digs, / I can't forgive him that pail of kerosene / left by the side of the stove. (42.7)
One of the reasons Billie Jo resents being blamed for the accident is that she feels it was actually Daddy's fault—although she threw the pail, he was the one who left it by the stove to begin with. Just as the women cleaning her house point a finger at Billie Jo, she copes with the tragedy by pointing it right back at him.
Quote #5
Miss Freeland said they [the Williams family] could stay / as long as they wanted. (63.8)
Miss Freeland opening her classroom up to a family of total strangers in need of shelter is one of the book's great acts of compassion, showing the sacrifice many people made during the Depression to improve the wellbeing of others.
Quote #6
If it hadn't been for the company, / this storm would have broken us / completely, / broken us more thoroughly than / the plow had broken the Oklahoma sod, / more thoroughly than my burns / had broken the ease of my hands. / But for the sake of the crowd, / and the hospitality of the home that sheltered us, / we held on, / and waited. (85.13)
When the funeral procession gets stuck in the book's worst dust storm, a woman opens her home to the entire crowd. That takes a lot of selflessness—just imagine having twenty or thirty dusty, dirty people into your home, spur of the moment. Her act of compassion, though, perhaps saves them from emotionally falling apart in the storm's dark circumstances.