“You can trust me, he says.You would say that. How do I know you ain’t lyin?You don’t. But I ain’t.”

“You don’t know who you’re fucking with, princess. Ain’t no one do bad like I do.”

“Yeah. And Savitar predates him. He has presided over this council since the very beginning, and notice, Savitar looks about thirty. We don’t know what he is, but he ain’t one of us and he ain’t human. And trust me, you don’t want to mess with him. (Paris)Thank you for that highly unamusing summation. Next time I have insomnia, I know who to call. In the meantime, little lioness who would probably like to live another year, don’t interrupt me again. I don’t like it and I tend to kill the things I don’t like. (Savitar)”

“You don’t fool me, he says in a low voice.Is that right?Yea, he says. I see it in yer eyes. All you care about’s yer precious brother.That aint true, I says.If it’d been Emmi they took, he says, Emmi an not Lugh…would you of gone after her?I take in a breath to say of course I would but the look on his face stops me. there ain’t no point in lyin when he already knows the truth.He leaves go of me an steps back.I thought so, he says. Yer sister’ll be safer with me than she could ever be with you. You jest ride along on yer high horse an leave her to me.”

“You too heavy a man for me to carry...I done carried heavy men and I know how they can break your back. I ain’t got but this one back and I don’t want it broke again...”

“Well how do you know we ain’t Negroes?”“Uncle Jack Finch says we really don’t know. He says as far as he can trace back the Finches we ain’t, but for all he knows we mighta come straight out of Ethiopia durin’ the Old Testament.”“Well if we came out durin’ the Old Testament it’s too long ago to matter.”“That’s what I thought,” said Jem, “but around here once you have a drop of Negro blood, that makes you all black.”