Whose Names Are Unknown Quotes

“They would rise and fall and, in their falling, rise again.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“No disgrace to be poor," as Mrs. Starwood says, "but cussed unhandy.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“So—there were still four hundred scabs, and it was painful to think of them as scabs because they were just like the others, but they were frightened. They were frightened because they were hungry now, but if they lost their jobs they would be hungrier, and winter was coming. Winter haunted them all because there was only scrub cotton to pick for awhile, maybe a few oranges now and then, maybe not anything. There were colds and flu and pneumonia, and babies being born and unborn, and school, and shoes wearing out. There were old men and women dying, and sometimes the young died before their time. Babies died. Life was just a little thing to them: a shrunken breast, a colorless tent wall in their curious sight, hunger without name and explanation, pain, and the dark. Sometimes in the short winter days, the mothers looked at old magazines and saw ads for milk and pretty blankets and lacy pillows, and insurance for your baby’s education, and sometimes they found articles about how to care for a baby, and they knew why their babies died. They knew anyway. Often they wondered why their babies did not die, how they could survive without all the things necessary to babies in the outside world.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“I hope you blow up and bust with your gluttony. You eat up our land like a filthy hog, you banks do. You and your flunky loan companies. I hope all the banks in America eat themselves to death. We poor people will then have to eat the corpse. We’ll be good and hungry by then. Understand? Good and hungry.” She moved toward him, shaking her finger. “You tell the rest of ’em that—all the banks in the big places, all your bosses. You tell ’em for a farmer’s wife who’s worked hard and honest.” Her weathered brown hand shook nearer his face. He flattened against the swinging gate and backed in. She stopped suddenly and laughed. She turned and walked out, still laughing, a great strong laugh that shook her body and echoed through the bank. She walked into the street and climbed into the old truck and drove off. Her hearty laughter trailed down the street above the sound of the motor.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“Everything nice costs money and everything bad just comes for nothing.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“Getting old is scary business. Seems to me when a body has worked hard all his life and never earned nothing extra to put away, there ought to be some way to make his last days peaceful. I'll tell you, I don't want to live off my kids, and I sure don't want to live in some old folks home on charity. Best way, I reckon, is not to think about it, but that ain't my way of doing things.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“Funny how we talk about our roots when our people have been here for generations."

"Interesting, too," Anna said, "how we're not really divided according to our nationalities, but by how much or how little money we have. Most of the differences are acquired, they depend on what money can buy you.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“It was a mistake to plow the plains in a land of little rain and wind, wind, wind, and the mistake resulted in dust, which covered fields and buildings, killed people and animals, and drove farmers out with nothing.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“When you just get to thinking about it, it shore seems kind of funny the things these big ones do. They got blacklists. Our fingerprints is made when we get our auto license if we don’t say no. They got guns and clubs and tear gas and vomit gas and them vigilantes paid to fire the guns. It shore seems kind of funny them acting like that before a man even has a chance to make a living. ‘Pears they could use the money they spend for gangsters and guns to raise our wages. It’d be a power more right,” Hightower drawled.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“Nelson unfolded an old eviction notice— To John Doe and Mary Doe, whose true names are unknown: You and each of you will please take notice that you are required to vacate and surrender up to me the premises now occupied by you; said premises being known as the California Lands Unit 20.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“Milt laughed once. “Not long ago some of the fellas were having an argument about who were our real bosses here. One of ’em said the banks, another one said the railroads, one said the power companies, one said the big land companies, one said the farm machinery companies. Nobody knew. These names don’t mean much, we don’t know who’s behind ’em. I can’t get it out of my head that whoever owns us makes no difference, it’s that they’re powerful enough to do it.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“And what was the cost of a man’s life? Enough to feed him and his family, to clothe them, enough for a shelter over their heads. Nothing more. And that was not much was it? Was it, really, here where shelter was only a tent and food less than enough? A man could want more, of course. But in these years, they said to one another, a man was lucky to eat and sleep. But less than that? No. It was better to sit here and wait. It was better to starve than to become the shadow of a man on this earth that could give him a full, whole life. It was better to starve than to become a sullen thing who fed his belly and slept in his sweat and forgot about his heritage. Such a man would forget his dream. And everything new was begun in a dream. Man’s destiny suspected and unsolved would crash in the darkness because he was too puny to assert his soul. These words may not have been on their tongues because the stirrings in a man’s mind can be wordless. The man with words is not the only man who thinks and weeps with the deep question of his being. Let no one ever think himself apart in this. Let him sit down and talk to any man and feel his shame; the unsayable things come out as clear and simple as a bell at night in every word he speaks. He wants more than bread and sleep; he wants himself—a man to wear the dignity of his reason.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“Frieda and Milt laughed. “No,” he said. “See that D.F. 68 printed on the bottom? Well, I heard of the D.F. One of the government men started it mostly to keep the camps clean, and then so the camps would have self-government for their problems. Wherever there’s some D.F.s in a camp, they have the people elect a camp committee, a women’s committee, and the like. Finally, they got to putting out Educational Bulletins to tell the workers about the laws for them. This is number 3. This government man pays for ’em, just does it on his own hook to help the people. D.F. means Democracy Functioning.” “Now, where in the world did you get that mouthful?” asked Mrs. Starwood. “A fella here in camp was telling me. He must be the one come to the door.” “What’s it got to do with a union?” Frieda asked. “Nothing, just hopes it’ll educate the people to get in a union and protect themselves, I guess.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“Well, that’s something,” Julia said. “You know what that bastard said to me when I asked him about the school? He said that over in the next county they forced the government to build a school for the migrants, and the town people ‘round here’re trying to do the same. He said they don’t like their kids mixing.” “What did you say?” “I said ‘it’s too damn bad’ to myself, but I just kept still. We got to have work.” He was silent a moment. “They sure hate us.” “Frieda was telling about a bunch of club women who want to have us all sterilized,” Julia said. “Yow, they want to fix us like horses. Just good for work.” “It makes you feel queer being in a place where everybody hates you.” “It makes you desperate sometimes. I felt desperate when he said they don’t like their kids mixing. I could tell he thought so too, the damned bootlicker.” “Let them talk. Our kids are as good as theirs, and they’re clean when we have soap and water.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“The women were dragging the two men through the door and out in front. The farmers were angry, but they were trying to hold off their wives, but the women were wild and furious. Mrs. Patton left them at the door and returned to her husband, who was sitting up rubbing the back of his head. Her hair was mussed and her clothes were torn. “We’ll have those men arrested,” she said. “I could kill them myself. This is an outrage!” “Let’s go out the back door, dear,” he said, and she helped him to his feet. The fighting went on outside until the men succeeded in pulling their wives off the two men whose clothes were torn and faces scratched and bleeding. As they were let go, they looked about for their clubs, picked them up and walked away.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“As she walked back to their own tent and sat down outside, she tried to feel guilty so that her promise would be for real, but she felt only a vague sense of having protected them. Maybe she did wrong. She had never wanted to steal anything, and this did not seem like stealing. Who were They? There weren’t any big houses around where They lived. The fields were just there by themselves as if they were growing for everybody. She knew nothing like that ever happened, but where were They, those mysterious people whom everyone was afraid of? She was not afraid. But she would have to find out who They were before she could defy Them. She began to imagine ways of helping these poor people she knew. In her thoughts she walked strongly through tale after tale, finding out what they needed, giving them back their farms, giving them houses instead of tents, giving them herds of cows and gallons of milk, giving them happiness.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

“He thought of the woman lying on the ground with her tense face looking up at him through the dimness. He thought of Lonnie, sleeping all day to forget her hunger. He thought of Julia and Mrs. Starwood forgetting theirs. He thought of the carrots tomorrow, the weeds in the carrots. He thought of Friday and surplus commodities. His mind was clear and light like air. Music wafted through it like a feather. He felt very tall. His broken shoes whispered in the soft dirt far below. Lonnie sleeping Friday weeds carrots three feet wide a woman screaming quarter of a mile tomorrow surplus commodities walking music water running forgetting forty cents a day sleeping forgetting forty cents floating like air clear water running sparkling through the brain surplus brain commodities sleeping a feather of music tickling this is my tent sitting down like a cloud floating music faces fluffy sound in my ears flying away.”
― Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown