to defend Quotes

“We had defended ourselves since memory against everything and everybody, considered all speech a code to be broken by us, and all gestures subject to careful analysis; we had become headstrong, devious, and arrogant. Nobody paid us any attention, so we paid very good attention to ourselves. Our limitations were not known to us—not then.”

Prietita, a brave young Mexican American girl, defends Joaquín from the neighborhood kids who taunt him with shouts of mojado or wetback.

″‘I speak now for Gnorre Nithing because he not a man to speak for himself. He is a warrior and a viking, not a talker about firesides.’ Thorkell smiled up at him gently, ‘What right have you to speak for another man, Aun Doorback?’ he said. ‘The best right of all, Master Goldhair,’ said Aun. ‘It was my brother that Gnorre killed.‘”

“Swallows for ever!”

″...even though Sal never had the chance to defend himself, he is guilty. Not in the legal sense, but in all the other ways that truly matter.”

“My boy, I hope you will always defend your sister, and give anybody who insults her a good thrashing--that is as it should be;”