Important Quotations Explained
1. Was
what he had heard about rich white people really true? Was he going
to work for people like you saw in the movies . . . ? He looked
at Trader Horn unfold and saw pictures of naked black men and women
whirling in wild dances . . . .
2. The
head hung limply on the newspapers, the curly black hair dragging
about in blood. He whacked harder, but the head would not come off.
. . . He saw a hatchet. Yes! That would do it. . . .
3. “Listen,
Bigger,” said Britten. “Did you see this guy [Jan] act in any way
out of the ordinary? I mean, sort of nervous, say? Just what did
he talk about?
“He talked about Communists.
. . .”
“Did he ask you to join?”
“He
gave me that stuff to read.”
“Come on. Tell
us some of the things he said.”
Bigger knew
the things that white folks hated to hear Negroes ask for; and he
knew that these were the things the Reds were always asking for.
4. He
had done this. He had brought all this about. In all of his life
these two murders were the most meaningful things that had ever
happened to him.
5. There
was something he knew and something he felt; something the world
gave him and something he himself had. . . . [N]ever in all his
life, with this black skin of his, had the two worlds, thought and
feeling, will and mind, aspiration and satisfaction, been together;
never had he felt a sense of wholeness.
