“Eres buena, eres lista, eres importante.”

“But I do not know what to tell myself. Stuart needs "space" and "time," as if this were physics and not a human relationship.”

“I never once heard her say she gone leave Leroy, and Minny don't say things twice. When she do things, they done the first time.”

“Taking care a white babies, that’s what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning.”

“She already got the blue dress on I ironed this morning, the one with sixty-five pleats on the waist, so tiny I got to squint through my glasses to iron. I don’t hate much in life, but me and that dress is not on good terms.”

“Only three things them ladies talk about: they kids, they clothes, and they friends. I hear the word Kennedy, I know they ain’t discussing no politic. They talking about what Miss Jackie done wore on the tee-vee.”

“She got a confused, disgusted look on her face, like she done salted her coffee instead a sugared it.”