How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
They ain't rich folks. Rich folks don't try so hard. (1.15)
Aibileen observes that the Leefolts are less well-off than their friends and neighbors. Maybe that's why Elizabeth always seems so eager to stay on Hilly's good side.
Quote #2
You see her in the Jitney 14 grocery, you never think she go leave her baby crying in her crib like that. But the help always know. (1.25)
Aibileen makes it clear that Elizabeth is a neglectful, abusive parent. But because of her status, Elizabeth can't be viewed as such. Her status allows her to abuse and neglect her daughter with impunity, and prevents her from getting help for her problem.
Quote #3
I could tell she don't understand why a colored woman can't raise no white-skin baby in Mississippi. It be a hard lonely life, not belonging here nor there. (7.91)
Skeeter is having trouble understanding why Constantine gave her daughter Lulabelle up for adoption. Lulabelle's father was black, but she inherits Constantine's father's light skin. As a result, she just won't fit into the closed-minded Jackson society.
Quote #4
But I know I'll have to rewrite everything [Aibileen's] written, wasting even more time. (11.82)
At first, Skeeter unwittingly buys into the false stereotype that black women are uneducated and illiterate. She soon learns that Aibileen is a formidable and practiced writer, even though she was forced to leave school in junior high.
Quote #5
"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 speck a work-dirt on it." (11.99)
Aibileen remembers the shame she feels when she was fired on the first day of her first job as a maid – for forgetting to inventory the silver she polished.
Quote #6
"Good. Then get going. Before this civil rights thing blows over." (12.82)
Elaine Stein might be a hip New York City editor, but she doesn't foresee that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s is no passing fancy.
Quote #7
"You cannot give these tribal people money […]. There is no Jitney 14 Grocery in the Ogaden Desert. And how would we even know if they're even feeding their kids with it? They're likely to go to the local voodoo tent and get a satanic tattoo with our money." (13.99)
Hilly has as many misconceptions about African life and tradition as she does about the lives and traditions of the black people in her hometown.
Quote #8
"Say she'd pay her back her back some every week, but Miss Hilly say no. That a true Christian don't give in charity to those who is well and able. Say it's kinder to let them learn to work things out themselves." (19.163)
Hilly's argument is used to justify unkind treatment of her maid, Yule May, who wants to borrow some money to send her sons to college. Hilly is totally ignoring the fact that her society simply doesn't offer Yule May good work opportunities.
Quote #9
"The churches got together though. They gone send both those boys to college." (19.165)
In the society shown in the novel, black and white children do not have equal opportunities to attend college. It takes cooperation and generosity within the community to make Yule May's dreams for her twin sons come true after Hilly has her jailed.