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Chapters Sixteen–Seventeen
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The Bean Trees

 Barbara Kingsolver
 

Important Quotations Explained

 
1. “I have always thought you had a wonderful way with words,” he said. “You don't need to go fishing for big words in the dictionary. You are poetic, mi'ija.” . . . “Well, thank you for the compliment,” I said, “but that's the biggest bunch of hogwash, what you said. When did I ever say anything poetic?” “Washing hogs is poetic,” he said.
 
 
2. Turtle shook her head. “Bean trees,” she said, as plainly as if she had been thinking about it all day. We looked where she was pointing. Some of the wisteria flowers had gone to seed, and all these wonderful long green pods hung down from the branches. They looked as much like beans as anything you'd ever care to eat. “Will you look at that,” I said. It was another miracle. The flower trees were turning into bean trees.
 
 
3. Lou Ann shuddered. “That door's what gets me. The way they made the door handle. Like a woman is something you shove on and walk right through. I try to ignore it, but it still gets me.” “Don't ignore it, then,” I said. “Talk back to it. Say, 'You can't do that number on me, you shit-for-brains.' . . . What I'm saying is you can't just sit there, you got to get pissed off.”
 
 
4. The whole Tucson Valley lay in front of us, resting in its cradle of mountains. The sloped desert plain that lay between us and the city was like a palm stretched out for a fortuneteller to read, with its mounds and hillocks, its life lines and heart lines of dry stream beds.
 
 
5. It didn't seem to matter to Turtle, she was happy where she was. . . . She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the rest. And me. I was the main ingredient.
 
 
 
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