Stockett Quotes & Sayings

Because I long to feel nothing. I want to be frozen inside. I want the icy cold to blow directly on my heart. — Kathryn Stockett

Stuart stands and says, 'Come here,' and he's on my side of the room in one stride and he claps my hands to his hips and kisses my mouth like I am the drink he's been dying for all day and I've heard girls say it's like melting, that feeling. But I think it's like rising, growing even taller and seeing sights over a hedge, colors you've never seen before. — Kathryn Stockett

Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person. — Kathryn Stockett

They say it's like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime. — Kathryn Stockett

Lot a folks think if you talk back to you husband, you crossed the line. And that justifies punishment. You believe that line?"
I scowl down at the table. "You know I ain't studying no line like that."
"Cause that line ain't there. Except in Leroy's head. Lines between black and white ain't there either. Some folks just made those up, long time ago. And that go for the white trash and society ladies too. — Kathryn Stockett

What a dichotomy. What conflicting ideas that we love and embrace these women, and entrust them to raise our children and to feed us and to bathe us, but we keep something as silly as a bathroom separate. — Kathryn Stockett

I'm a Southerner - I never take satisfaction in touching a nerve. — Kathryn Stockett

When I grew older and awkward, when my parents divorced and life had gone all to hell, Demetrie stood me at the wardrobe mirror and told me over and over, 'You are beautiful. You are smart. You are important.' It was an incredible gift to give a child who thinks nothing of herself. — Kathryn Stockett

I'm pretty sure I can say that no one in my family ever asked Demetrie what it felt like to be black in Mississippi, working for our white family. It never occurred to us to ask. It was everyday life. It wasn't something people felt compelled to examine.
I have wished, for many years, that I'd been old enough and thoughtful enough to ask Demetrie that question. She died when I was sixteen. I've spent years imagining what her answer would be. And that is why I wrote this book. — Kathryn Stockett

He moves closer and leans down so I will look at him. And I feel sick, literally nauseated by the smell of bourbon on his breath. And yet I still want to fold myself up and put my entire body in his arms. I am loving him and hating him at the same time. — Kathryn Stockett

All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe. — Kathryn Stockett

Who knew heartbreak would be so goddamn hot. — Kathryn Stockett

Which means I have to lie to her on a daily basis, which is in itself enjoyable but a little degrading at the same time — Kathryn Stockett

You're the smartest one in the class, Aibileen," she say. "And the only way you're going to keep sharp is to read and write every day. — Kathryn Stockett

She's like a Philistine on a Sunday, the way she won't take but so many steps a day. Except every day's Sunday around here. — Kathryn Stockett

This woman talk like she from so deep in the country she got corn growing in her shoes. — Kathryn Stockett

That's what I want them to know. Saying thank you, when you really mean it, when you remember what someone done for you — Kathryn Stockett

I don't regret it, but I don't feel quite as lucky anymore. — Kathryn Stockett

I used to be a good fighter." She looks out along the boxwoods, wipes off her sweat with her palm. "If you'd known me ten years ago..."
She's got no goo on her face, her hair's not sprayed, her nightgown's like an old prairie dress. She takes a deep breath through her nose and I see it. I see the white-trash girl she was ten years ago. She was strong. She didn't take no shit from nobody. — Kathryn Stockett

I choke then. The tears roll down. It's all them white peoples that breaks me, standing around the colored neighborhood. White peoples with guns, pointed at colored peoples. Cause who gone protect our peoples? Ain't no colored policemans. — Kathryn Stockett

I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good. — Kathryn Stockett

THE HOUSE straightened up and then go on and fix some of that chicken salad now, say Miss Leefolt. It's bridge club day. Every fourth Wednesday a the month. A course I already got everthing ready to go - made the chicken salad this morning, ironed the tablecloths yesterday. Miss Leefolt seen me at it too. She ain't but twenty-three years old and she like hearing herself tell me what to do. She already got the blue dress on I ironed this morning, the one with sixty-five pleats on the waist, so tiny I got to squint through my glasses to iron. I don't hate much in life, — Kathryn Stockett

CHAPTER 1 August 1962 MAE MOBLEY — Kathryn Stockett

I'm starting to hate the whiny teenage songs about love and nothing. — Kathryn Stockett

And I know there are plenty of other "colored" things I could do besides telling my stories or going to Shirley Boon's meetings- the mass meetings in town, the marches in Birmingham, the voting rallies upstate. But truth is, I don't care that much about voting. I don't care about eating at a counter with white people. What I care about is, if in ten years, a white lady will call my girls dirty and accuse them of stealing the silver. — Kathryn Stockett

And if your friends make fun of you for chasing your dream, remember - just lie. — Kathryn Stockett

Frying chicken always makes me feel a little better about life. — Kathryn Stockett

It's mighty strange, without a doubt Nobody knows you when you're down and out — Kathryn Stockett

If I'd played Mammy, I'd of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress. -Minny — Kathryn Stockett

That white uniform was her 'pass' to get into white places with us - the grocery store, the state fair, the movies. Even though this was the 70s and the segregation laws had changed, the 'rules' had not. — Kathryn Stockett

I think if you're president, color goes away completely: you're president and it doesn't matter if you're white, green or purple. — Kathryn Stockett

But after Mr. Evers got shot a week ago, lot a colored folk is frustrated in this town. Especially the younger ones, who ain't built up a callus yet. — Kathryn Stockett

The phone ring so I go in the kitchen and answer it. Got a little — Kathryn Stockett

It always sound scarier when a hollerer talk soft. — Kathryn Stockett

crying, and go in the toilet bowl — Kathryn Stockett

We done something brave and good here ... Maybe [we] don't want to be deprived a any a the things that go along with being brave and good. Even the bad. — Kathryn Stockett

It was delicious to have someone to keep secrets with — Kathryn Stockett

I've become one of those people who prowl around at night in their cars. God, I am the town's Boo Radley, just like in To Kill A Mockingbird. — Kathryn Stockett

And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed. — Kathryn Stockett

We go on in her room, where we like to set. I get up in the big chair and she get up on me and smile, bounce a little. "Tell me bout the brown wrapping. And the present." She so excited, she squirming. She has to jump off my lap, squirm a little to get it out. Then she crawl back up.
That's her favorite story cause when I tell it, she get two presents. I take the brown wrapping from my Piggly Wiggly grocery bag and wrap up a little something, like piece a candy, inside. Then I use the white paper from my Cole's Drug Store bag and wrap another one just like it. She take it real serious, the unwrapping, letting me tell the story bout how it ain't the color a the wrapping that count, it's what we is inside. — Kathryn Stockett

I guess we all get a little snippy when we're not feeling good. — Kathryn Stockett

It's Tuesday, change-the-damn-sheets day. If I don't do it today, that makes Wednesday change-the-damn-sheets day too. — Kathryn Stockett

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. — Kathryn Stockett

As children, we looked up to our maids and our nannies, who were playing in some ways the role of our mothers. They were paid to be nice to us, to look after us, teach us things and take time out of their day to be with us. As a child you think of these people as an extension of your mother. — Kathryn Stockett

I set her on her wooden baby seat so her little hiney don't fall in and soon as I turn my back, she off that pot running. — Kathryn Stockett

The point is, I can't tell you how to succeed. But I can tell you how not to: Give in to the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript - or painting, song, voice, dance moves, [insert passion here] - in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it for good. I guarantee you that it won't take you anywhere. Or you could do what this writer did: Give in to your obsession instead. — Kathryn Stockett

Now I had babies confuse before. John Green Dudley, first word out a that boy's mouth was Mama and he was looking straight at me. But then pretty soon he calling everybody including hisself Mama and calling his daddy Mama too ... Nobody worry bout it. Course when he start playing dress-up in his sister's Jewel Taylor twirl skirts and wearing Chanel No. 5, we all get a little concern. — Kathryn Stockett

We must keep this a perfect secret. — Kathryn Stockett

For a minute, we're just two people wondering why things are the way they are. — Kathryn Stockett

Ever afternoon, me and Baby Girl set in the. rocking chair before her nap. Ever afternoon, I tell her: You kind, you smart, you important. But she growing up and I know, soon, them few words ain't gone be enough. — Kathryn Stockett

What if I'm stuck. Here. Forever. — Kathryn Stockett

I listened wide-eyed, stupid. Glowing by her voice in the dim light. If chocolate was a sound, it would've been Constantine's voice singing. If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate. — Kathryn Stockett

I tell myself that's what you get when you put thirty-one toilets on the most popular girl's front yard. People tend to treat you a little differently than before. — Kathryn Stockett

I get so mad at myself for being so weak! How can I love a man who beats me raw? Why do I love a fool drinker? One time I asked him, "Why? Why are you hitting me?" He leaned down and looked me right in the face. "If I didn't hit you, Minny, who knows what you become." I was trapped in the corner of the bedroom like a dog. He was beating me with his belt. It was the first time I'd ever really thought about it. Who knows what I could become, if Leroy would stop goddamn hitting me. — Kathryn Stockett

The day your child says she hates you, and every child will go through the phase, it kicks like a foot in the stomach. — Kathryn Stockett

I am looking for a future for myself. I like to hear about the possibilities of others. — Kathryn Stockett

By the time she a year old Mae Mobley following me around everwhere I go ... .Miss Leefolt, she'd narrow up her eyes at me like I done something wrong, unhitch that crying baby off my foot. I reckon that's the risk you run, letting somebody else raise you chilluns — Kathryn Stockett

Everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it. — Kathryn Stockett

Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else. — Kathryn Stockett

Cokes at Phi Delta Theta parties and — Kathryn Stockett

You are a beautiful person — Kathryn Stockett

Truth.
It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life.
Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling. — Kathryn Stockett

They ain't rich folk, that I know. Rich folk don't try so hard. I — Kathryn Stockett

Miss Skeeter say maybe don't spec nothing at all, that most Southern peoples is "repressed." If they feel something, they might not say a word. Just hold they breath and wait for it to pass, like gas. — Kathryn Stockett

It's so hot, Mister Dunn's rooster walks in my door and squats his red self right in front of my kitchen fan. I come in to find him looking at me like 'I ain't moving nowhere, lady — Kathryn Stockett

My sister Doreena who never lifted a royal finger growing up because she had the heart defect that we later found out was a fly on the X-ray machine. — Kathryn Stockett

I'm tired of the rules," I say. — Kathryn Stockett

I intend to stay on her like hair on soap. — Kathryn Stockett

When Demetrie got sick, we knew it was our responsibility to take care of her and pay her medical bills. And we embraced that. But the tricky part is, like so many families in the South, we also expected her to use a separate bathroom, to use separate utensils. — Kathryn Stockett

She takes a deep breath through her nose and I see it. I see the white-trash girl she was ten years ago. She was strong. She didn't take no shit from nobody. Miss — Kathryn Stockett

The first book you write because of the way it makes you feel. The second one you can't help but wonder how it's going to make the reader feel. — Kathryn Stockett

Find I can get my point across a lot better writing them down — Kathryn Stockett

Babies love fat. — Kathryn Stockett

Her house being small. They ain't rich folk, that I know. Rich folk don't try so hard. I'm used to working for young couples, but I spec this is the smallest house I ever worked in. It's just the one story. Her and Mister Leefolt's room in the back be a fair size, but Baby Girl's room be tiny. The dining room and the regular living room kind a join up. Only two bathrooms, which is a relief cause I worked in houses where they was five or — Kathryn Stockett

I want to read what you're thinking. I'm pretty sure it's not about housekeeping. — Kathryn Stockett

Some readers tell me, 'We always treated our maid like she was a member of the family.' You know, that's interesting, but I wonder what your maid's perspective was on that. — Kathryn Stockett

I hear Raleigh's new accounting business isn't doing well. Maybe up in New York or somewhere it's a good thing, but in Jackson, Mississippi, people just don't care to do business with a rude, condescending asshole. — Kathryn Stockett

To say I have frizzy hair is an understatement. It is kinky, more pubic than cranial, and whitish blond, breaking off easily, like hay. — Kathryn Stockett

All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries. — Kathryn Stockett

We all on a party line to God... — Kathryn Stockett

Miss Celia stares down into the pot like she's looking for her future. "Are you happy, Minny?"
"Why you ask me funny questions like that?"
"But are you?"
"Course I's happy. You happy too. Big house, big yard, husband looking after you." I frown at Miss Celia and I make sure she can see it. Because ain't that white people for you, wondering if they are happy ENOUGH. — Kathryn Stockett

I've been dropped off in a place I do not belong anymore. Certainly not here with Mother and Daddy, ... — Kathryn Stockett

I do wish that people talked about the subject of race, especially in the South. — Kathryn Stockett

When you little, you only get asked two questions, what's your name and how old you is, so you better get em right. — Kathryn Stockett

I was surprise to see the world didn't stop just cause my boy did. — Kathryn Stockett

Mother calls up the stairs to ask what in the world I'm typing up there all day and I holler down, 'Just typing up some notes from the Bible study. Just writing down all the things I love about Jesus. — Kathryn Stockett

Things ain't never gone change in this town , Aibileen. We living in hell. Our kids is trapped. — Kathryn Stockett

President Kennedy's assassination, less than two weeks ago, has struck the world dumb. It's like no one wants to be the first to break the silence. Nothing seems important. — Kathryn Stockett

Mississippi and the world is two different places,' the Deacon say and we all nod cause ain't it the truth. — Kathryn Stockett

But Lou Anne, she understood the point of the book before she even read it. The one who was missing the point this time was me. — Kathryn Stockett

Baby Girl," I say. "I need you remember everything I told you. Do you remember what I told you?"
She still crying steady, but the hiccups are gone. "To wipe my bottom good when I'm done?"
"No, baby, the other one. About who you are. — Kathryn Stockett

Taking care a white babies, that's what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning. — Kathryn Stockett

It can be really powerful to write something when you're sad. — Kathryn Stockett

And you call yourself a Christian,' were Hilly's words to me and I thought, God. When did I ever do that? — Kathryn Stockett

Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today? — Kathryn Stockett

How tall are you, Constantine?" I asked, unable to hide my tears.
Constantine narrowed her eyes at me.
"How tall is you?"
"Five-eleven," I cried. "I'm already taller than the boys' basketball coach."
"Well, I'm five-thirteen, so quit feeling sorry for yourself. — Kathryn Stockett

Having a separate bathroom for the black domestic was just the way things were done. It had faded out in new homes by the time the '70s and '80s rolled up. — Kathryn Stockett

Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother too. — Kathryn Stockett

That's what I love about Aibileen, she can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they'll fit right in your pocket. — Kathryn Stockett

I am not spending my final days in a hospital, nor will I turn my own house into one." Doctor — Kathryn Stockett