I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Quotes

Quote 1: "I didn't come to stay." Preface, pg. 3

Quote 2: "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult." Preface, pg. 6

Quote 3: "like most children, I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it." Chapter 2, pg. 10

Quote 4: "I remember never believing that whites were really real." Chapter 4, pg. 25

Quote 5: "I knew that if a person truly wanted to avoid hell and brimstone, and being roasted forever in the devil's fire, all she had to do was memorize Deuteronomy and follow its teaching, word for word." Chapter 6, pg. 38

Quote 6: "He was a stranger, and if he chose to leave us with a stranger, it was all of one piece." Chapter 9, pg. 59

Quote 7: "don't worry 'cause you ain't pretty...I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind." Chapter 10, pg. 66

Quote 8: "There was an army of adults, whose motives and movements I just couldn't understand and who made no effort to understand mine." Chapter 11, pg. 73

Quote 9: "language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone that separates him from the lower animals." Chapter 15, pg. 95

Quote 10: "By the way, Bailey, Mrs. Flowers sent you some tea cookies" Chapter 15, pg. 99

Quote 11: "learning the mid-Victorian values with very little money to indulge them." Chapter 16, pg. 101

Quote 12: "Mrs. Cullinan was right about one thing. My name wasn't Mary." Chapter 16, pg. 108

Quote 13: I saw Mother Dear." Chapter 17, pg. 114

Quote 14: "One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed...a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful." Chapter 19, pg. 131

Quote 15: "my policy is I'd rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than in a nigger's." Chapter 24, pg. 184

Quote 16: "If you ask a Negro where he's been, he'll tell you where he's going." Chapter 25, pg. 189

Quote 17: "They don't really hate us. They don't know us. How can they hate us? They mostly scared." Chapter 25, pg. 192

Quote 18: "Then ask your son to look around for my arm, which I left over there." Chapter 27, pg. 208

Quote 19: "All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market." Chapter 28, pg. 210

Quote 20: "We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now." Chapter 29, pg. 219

Quote 21: "mean and petty and full of pretense." Chapter 30, pg 223

Quote 22: "How maddening it was to have been born in a cotton field with aspirations of grandeur." Chapter 30, pg. 226

Quote 23: "'This is my daughter' and 'She speaks Spanish.'" Chapter 30, pg. 229

Quote 24: "He had enjoyed his Mexican holiday, and still was unable to proffer a bit of kindness to the woman who had waited patiently, busying herself with housewifely duties." Chapter 31, pg. 237

Quote 25: "she's a whore." Chapter 31, pg. 239

Quote 26: "At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice." Chapter 31, pg. 243

Quote 27: "I was never again to sense myself to solidly outside the pale of the human race." Chapter 32, pg. 247

Quote 28: "In two months, I had become blasé." Chapter 33, pg. 250

Quote 29: "I left his room because, and only because, we had said all we could say." Chapter 33, pg. 254

Quote 30: "Can't do is like Don't Care. Neither of them have a home." Chapter 34, pg. 258

Quote 31: "See, you don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking." Chapter 36, pg. 281