“What brothers say to tease their sisters has nothing to do with what they really think of them.”

“Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning.”

“She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of and what you do.”

“Sometimes I couldn't help thinking that the unluckiest thing about being the thirteenth child was having all those older brothers and sisters telling me what to do.”

“See what fun it is to do what Simon Says?” Simon teased,drawing closer toward me.”

“To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say.”