Quotes from One Crazy Summer

Rita Williams-Garcia ·  224 pages

Rating: (22.2K votes)


“We all have our la-la-la song. The thing we do when the world isn't singing a nice tune to us. We sing our own nice tune to drown out ugly.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“It was a strange, wonderful feeling. To discover eyes upon you when you expected no one to notice you at all.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“A name is important. It isn't something you drop in the litter basket or on the ground. Your name is now people know you. The very mention of your name makes a picture spring to mind, whether it's a picture of clashing fists or a mighty mountain that can't be knocked down. Your name is who you are and how you're known even when you do something great or something dumb.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“Saying "please" without saying it to someone you don't want to say "please" to in the first place tops the list of hard.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“I just took the box and nodded, because that's how you treat crazy people. You nod and count down twenty-seven days for crazy to come to an end.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer



“Cecile made it sound like it was no big deal. "I've been fighting for freedom all my life." But she wasn't talking about protest signs, standing up to the Man, and knowing your rights. She was talking about her life. Just her. Not the people.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“If you knew what I knew, seen what I've seen, you wouldn't be so quick to pull the plow.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“That was how I knew Sister Mukumbo was a real teacher, aside from her welcoming smile and her blackboard penmanship. She asked a teacher's type of question. The kind that says: Join in.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“I had a lot of those memories clicking before me like projector slides in the dark. Lots of pictures, smells and sounds flashing in and out.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“The last thing Pa and Big Ma wanted to hear was how we made a grand Negro spectacle of ourselves thirty thousand feet up in the air around all these white people.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer



“Cecile carried on a full conversation, on and on”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“We're trying to break yokes. You're trying to make one for yourself.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“There was also one Anthony, whose mama could spell, and one Antnee, whose mama couldn’t. It”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“Although I didn’t hear the door swing”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer


“I didn’t want to say Big Ma was right. Cecile was no kind of mother. Cecile didn’t want us. Cecile was crazy. I didn’t have to.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, quote from One Crazy Summer



About the author

Rita Williams-Garcia
Born place: in Queens, N.Y,, The United States
Born date April 13, 1957
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“OFFICIAL ESTIMATES SAY THAT BETWEEN 1,000 AND 1,500 people sleep rough on the streets of London on any given night. Many of them are young runaways, fleeing abuse of various kinds at home. Some are elderly, people at the end of their lives who have lost everything. Quite a few have mental-health problems, made worse by the impossibility of getting their required medication. All are vulnerable; always cold, always hungry, slowly getting more weak and more scared.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me


“The Fraud Police are the imaginary, terrifying force of 'real' grown-ups who you believe - at some subconscious level - are going to come knocking on your door in the middle of the night, saying:
We've been watching you, and we have evidence that you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING. You stand accused of the crime of completely winging it, you are guilty of making shit up as you go along, you do not actually deserve your job, we are taking everything away and we are TELLING EVERYBODY.”
― Amanda Palmer, quote from The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help


“Jambu shrugged apologetically. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said. Starflight had to sit down and fold his wings over his head for a minute. Glory”
― Tui T. Sutherland, quote from The Hidden Kingdom


“skilled manual work offered spiritual rewards to which academic institutions and my parent’s social milieu were oblivious.”
― quote from Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman


“How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages—but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out.”
― Sam Harris, quote from Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion


Interesting books

Lost in Babylon
(4.2K)
Lost in Babylon
by Peter Lerangis
Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts
(125.5K)
Waiting for Godot: A...
by Samuel Beckett
Five Ways to Fall
(11.8K)
Five Ways to Fall
by K.A. Tucker
Morrie: In His Own Words
(4.4K)
Tower Lord
(32K)
Tower Lord
by Anthony Ryan
Helvetti
(116.8K)
Helvetti
by Dante Alighieri

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.