Important Quotations Explained
1. The
singing woman . . . had wrapped herself up in an old quilt instead
of a winter coat. Her head cocked to one side, her eyes fixed on
Mr. Robert Smith, she sang in a powerful contralto.
2. He
didn't mean it. It happened before he was through. She'd stepped
away from him to pick flowers, returned, and at the sound of her
footsteps behind him, he'd turned around before he was through.
It was becoming a habit—this concentration on things behind him.
Almost as though there were no future to be had.
3. Milkman
closed his eyes and opened them. The street was even more crowded
with people, all going in the direction he was coming from. All
walking hurriedly and bumping against him. After a while he realized
that nobody was walking on the other side of the street.
4. “Gold,”
he whispered, and immediately, like a burglar on his first job,
stood up to pee.
Life, safety, and luxury
fanned out before him like the tailspread of a peacock, and as he
stood there trying to distinguish each delicious color, he saw the
dusty boots of his father standing just on the other side of the
shallow pit.
5. O
Solomon don't leave me here
Cotton balls to
choke me
O Solomon don't leave me here
Buckra's
arms to yoke me
Solomon done fly, Solomon
done gone
Solomon cut across the sky, Solomon
gone home.
