Best 18 quotes of Justina Ireland on MyQuotes

All they care about is how it will look in the papers.

And I suppose I might have grown up better, might have become a proper house girl or even taken Aunt Aggie's place as House Negro. I might have been a good girl if it had been in the cards. But all of that was dashed to hell two days after I was born, when the dead rose up and started to walk on a battlefield in a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.

...because there's nothing better than the memories of others when you're little and have no stories of your own.

But that's the way life goes most of the time: the thing you least count on comes along and ruins everything else you got planned.

It was the midwife that tried to do me in. Truth be told, it wasn't really her fault. What else is a good Christian woman going to do when a Negro comes flying out from between the legs of the richest white woman in Haller County, Kentucky?

Momma said that's why you had to be wary. "Janie, you mark my words: You be careful who you trust. You never know when the man you married is gonna turn around and try to take a nibble out of your neck.

Momma used to say there were lots of ways to survive. Don't e afraid to pretend to be something you aren't, Jane. Some times a little subterfuge and chicanery is in order and the quickest way to achieve one's goal. It ain't hard to imagine Ida pretending to be just another dumb colored girl in order to make it out here. Survival by any means necessary.

My momma always said the best way to get what you want from people is to give them what they think they want. They expected me to be stupid, so I used that to our advantage.

See, the problem in this world ain’t sinners, or even the dead. It is men who will step on anyone who stands in the way of their pursuit of power. Luckily there will always be people like me to stop them

So don't let nobody tell you any different about the old days. Life is hard now, nothing but suffering, but some kinds of suffering is easier to bear than others.

Someday, if not today, you will see that this life is nothing without people to love

Sometimes you have to live down to people's expectations, Kate. If you can do that, you'll get much further in life.

Surviving can make people right mean

The darkness agrees with me. It asks me to release it, as loud as a roar and as quiet as a whisper. I remember what my sister said long ago: You must control the darkness. You can’t ever give in to it. But the shadows want to make me happy, and I deserve a little happiness

The point is, sometimes when the rabbit gets too fat, too comfortable, he makes mistakes. But the gardener, she ain’t got nothing but time. Because even the hungriest rabbit can’t eat the entire garden. At some point the good sheriff will make a mistake, some gross miscalculation, reveal some weakness, and that’s when we’ll find our freedom.

We ain't supposed to carry firearms when traveling into town but I'm always ready for someone to try and take a bite outta me, especially at the university. Everyone knows that academics are the most ruthless cutthroats around.

Wherever did they find you?" "At the junction of hard luck and bad times," I answer. It's something that my momma says.

Why are all pretty boys insane?