Dread Nation

See, the problem in this world ain’t sinners, or even the dead. It is men who will step on anyone who stands in the way of their pursuit of power.

It’s a cruel, cruel world. And the people are the worst part.

There’s nothing white folks hate more than realizing they accidentally treated a Negro like a person.

My momma always said the best way to get what you want from people is to give them what they think they want. They expected me to be stupid, so I used that to our advantage.

Maybe that’s your problem. You been waiting for a man.

Sometimes it’s easier to think about other folks’ small hurts than your big ones.

But that's the way life goes most of the time: the thing you least count on comes along and ruins everything else you got planned.

The day I came squealing and squalling into the world was the first time someone tried to kill me. I guess it should have been obvious to everyone right then that I wasn't going to have a normal life.

But I can't change the past; I can only push headlong into an uncertain future.

I ain't waiting for an opportunity. I'm making one.

Someday, if not today, you will see that this life is nothing without people to love

Momma used to say that a politician was a man that had perfected the art of lying,

It seems strange that in these very fraught times folks would be more concerned about hardworking people trying to find a better life than the monsters that actually want to eat them.

So don't let nobody tell you any different about the old days. Life is hard now, nothing but suffering, but some kinds of suffering is easier to bear than others.

I don't need a spotlight to know a snitch when I see one.

It was the midwife that tried to do me in. Truth be told, it wasn't really her fault. What else is a good Christian woman going to do when a Negro comes flying out from between the legs of the richest white woman in Haller County, Kentucky?

Sometimes you have to live down to people's expectations, Kate. If you can do that, you'll get much further in life.

You believe strongly enough in an idea, nothing else matters.

When are these damn fools going to realize that world is gone, and they ain’t never getting it back? The tall tales they’ve been told ain’t worth their lives, either way.

Momma always said a healthy serving of scorn before dinner keeps a girl slim.

And I suppose I might have grown up better, might have become a proper house girl or even taken Aunt Aggie's place as House Negro. I might have been a good girl if it had been in the cards. But all of that was dashed to hell two days after I was born, when the dead rose up and started to walk on a battlefield in a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.

His lips twist, filled with malice. “I ain’t yet seen the man who can do that.” “Maybe that’s your problem. You been waiting for a man.

The point is, sometimes when the rabbit gets too fat, too comfortable, he makes mistakes. But the gardener, she ain’t got nothing but time. Because even the hungriest rabbit can’t eat the entire garden. At some point the good sheriff will make a mistake, some gross miscalculation, reveal some weakness, and that’s when we’ll find our freedom.

The fact Katherine is on my side is as much a surprise as her cool logic.

That’s the thing with me. Once I read something, I know it forever. Whether I’m supposed to be reading it or not.

We ain't supposed to carry firearms when traveling into town but I'm always ready for someone to try and take a bite outta me, especially at the university. Everyone knows that academics are the most ruthless cutthroats around.

I know I am more than my skin color.