The following are my favorite quotes from Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give:
No lie, every time a sneaker is cleaned improperly, a kitten dies.
I don't try to see who got shot or who did it. You can't snitch if you don't know anything.
When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees. The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me.
Daddy spends hours out here every night, planting, tilling, and talking. He claims a good garden needs good conversation.
If a rapper would say it, she doesn't say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her "hood."
Her words used to have power. If she said it was fine, it was fine. But after you've held two people as they took their last breaths, words like that don't mean shit anymore.
"He didn't want to sell drugs, Starr," DeVante says. "Nobody really wanna do that shit. Khalil ain't have much of a choice though...Look, his momma stole some shit from King. King wanted her dead. Khalil found out and started selling to pay the debt...That's the only reason he started doing that shit. Trying to save her."
Slave masters thought they were making a difference in black people's lives too. Saving them from their "wild African ways." Same shit, different century. I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.
That's the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?
Sadness creeps into momma's eyes, but she gives me a small smile. "When I was growing up, your grandmother would do and say hurtful things when she was drunk, and apologize the next morning. At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them."
