Phyllisia Cathy Quotes

″‘Proud? Proud indeed!’ I recoiled from the venom of her attack. ‘It is a trick! This thing beauty they talk about. Believe me, it is a low trick put out by God self.’ Her face was flushed with anger. ‘He puts meaning into beauty, and reduces the meaning to nothing.‘”

“You are a West Indian girl going to school in New York and you are proud.”

“Calvin is my father. To myself I use his first name, as a sign of disrespect.”

“All of my self-pity turned into a need for revenge. But I held myself at Mother’s knees not to rush up and scratch at her pretty face.”

“I was always pleased around Edith and her sisters. They all thought I was pretty, all except Ellen, the baby, and she thought I was ‘beautiful’.”

“My face was burned with shame. Sitting there and not answering was like begging. And why should I beg? I had done nothing to anybody.”

“Of course there were many children in this class that were untidy and whom I did not like. Some were tough. So tough that I was afraid of them. But at least they did not have to sit right across the aisle from me. Nor did they try to be friendly as Edith did - whenever she happened to come to school.”

“Edith ignored my snub. She always ignored my snubs. Edith had made up her mind, from the first day I entered this class, that she would be my friend whether I wanted it or not.”

“I stared hard into the faces of grownups, searching for a look of pity, of concern, wishing just one person would ask me: ‘What happened little girl?’ Then I could explain to somebody, and they might tell me what I was doing wrong. Why nobody liked me.”