“With other people, Hilly hands out lies like the Presbyterians hand out guilt, but it's our own silent agreement, this strict honesty, perhaps the one thing that has kept us friends”

“I shake my head at my friend. “Not only is they lines, but you know good as I do where them lines be drawn.” Aibileen shakes her head. “I used to believe in em. I don’t anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain’t.”

“Womens, they ain't like men. A woman ain't gone beat you with a stick. Miss Hilly wouldn't pull no pistol on me. Miss Leefolt wouldn't come burn my house down. No, white womens like to keep they hands clean. They got a shiny little set of tools they use, sharp as witches' fingernails, tidy and laid out neat, like the picks on a dentist tray. They gone take they time with em.”

“I wash my hands, wonder how an awful day could turn even worse. It seems like at some point you'd just run out of awful.”

“No, white women like to keep their hands clean. They got a shiny little set a tools they use, sharp as witches' fingernails, tidy and laid out neat, like the picks on a dentist tray. They gonna take they time with em.”

“Minny: "Eat my shit."Hilly: "Excuse me?"Minny: "I said eat...my...shit."Hilly: "Have you lost your mind?"Minny: "No ma'am, but you about to, cause you just did."*Minny eyes the pie*Hilly: "Did...What?"*Minny eyes pie again, Missus Walters gasping and laughing, Hilly eyes pie then gags and runs off*Missus Walters: "And you didn't just eat one, you ate TWO slices!"*Minny runs off*Missus Walters: "RUN, MINNY, RUUN!!"*She says this while laughing*”

“Rule Number One for working for a white lady, Minny: it is nobody’s business. You keep your nose out of your White Lady’s problems, you don’t go crying to her with yours—you can’t pay the light bill? Your feet are too sore? Remember one thing: white people are not your friends. They don’t want to hear about it. And when Miss White Lady catches her man with the lady next door, you keep out of it, you hear me?”