Quotes from Homecoming

Cynthia Voigt ·  416 pages

Rating: (18.8K votes)


“Where the veil broke, you could see silvery clouds on which tall angels might stand. Not cute little Christmas angels, but high, stern angels in white robes, whose faces were sad and serious from being near God all day and hearing His decisions about the world.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“No fish were biting. Not that morning. She heard James calling her with panic in his voice. Slowly, she trudged back to her family. “I told you,” Sammy said to James, “because the fishing line was”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“They spent almost four dollars on supper at the mall, and none of them had dessert. They had hamburgers and french fries and, after Dicey thought it over, milkshakes.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“Dicey felt a great weight settle on her shoulders. She tried to shrug it off, but it wouldn’t move.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“He took his time getting to her, as if he was sure she’d wait, sure of his own strength to hold her, even at that distance. He moved like he thought she was afraid of him, too afraid to run.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming



“Throughout the meal, Windy’s voice blew over them, smooth and steady. It didn’t matter what he was saying.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“There could be no home for the Tillermans. Home free — Dicey would settle for a place to stay. Stay free.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“Out here, there was salt on the wind itself that fell on your skin like rain. You could taste it. Out here the sun heated and the wind cooled, and the waves sang their constant song.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“The No filled the whole air of the house. Every time she breathed in she breathed in that No.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“He was studying his grandmother, as if he was hungry too, but for something not food, hungry in a way that food could never fill.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming



“She felt funny, strange, making up lies as quickly and smoothly as if she’d been doing it all her life.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


About the author

Cynthia Voigt
Born place: in Boston, Massachusetts, The United States
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“I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much much more effectively than the people of good will.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., quote from Letter from the Birmingham Jail


“The officers entered the Clinic with Noda. Passing through the mouth-like lobby, they proceeded along endlessly winding corridors and stairways lit only by red night lights, like a journey through the innards of a body, before at last finding themselves on the fourth floor. Yamaji’s research had already told them that Inui lived on the fourth floor, but it would have been too dangerous to use the elevator. Elevators commonly appear in dreams as symbols of sexual desires. As such, they thought it highly probable that the elevator would be used for an attack from the subconscious.”
― Yasutaka Tsutsui, quote from Paprika


“«Debilidad o fuerza. No sabes a dónde vas ni por qué vas, entra en todas partes, responde a todo. Como si fueras un cadáver ya no te podrán matar.» A la mañana tenía una mirada tan extraviada y un aspecto tan muerto que aquellos que encontré quizá no me hayan visto.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from A Season in Hell


“That's the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores--when we can ride past them at Fayette and Monroe, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway. Pale-skinned hillbillies and hard-faced yos, toothless white trash and gold-front gangsters--when we can glide on and feel only fear, we're well on the way. And if, after a time, we can glimpse the spectacle of the corner and manage nothing beyond loathing and contempt, then we've arrived at last at that naked place where a man finally sees the sense in stretching razor wire and building barracks and directing cattle cars into the compound.

It's a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it's not chance in circumstance, that opportunity itself isn't the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values--we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us.

Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkably assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now posses. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith.

Why? The truth is plain:

We were not born to be niggers.”
― David Simon, quote from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood


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