P.S. Be Eleven Quotes

“Dear Delphine,
When you are older I want you to find Chinua Achebe. I want you to read Things Fall Apart. Don't be hardheaded and try to read this book now. Don't be hardheaded, Delphine. You are the smart one, but you are not ready. You can read all its words. Even the African words. But you will not know what Achebe is saying. It is a bad thing to bite into a hard fruit with little teeth. You will say bad things about the fruit when the problem is your teeth.
I want you to read this book. I want you to know Things Fall Apart. Fourteen is a good age to find Chinua Achebe.
Nzila.
Your Mother.
P.S. For now you are eleven. Be eleven.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“What did Michael Jackson know about life without the ones you loved the most, when each of them moved farther and farther away until they were voices you heard and pictures that flashed before you? Vonetta knew. Fern knew. I knew. There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t wonder about everyone who had flashed before us. There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t close our eyes and go wishing.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“As young as they were, it was funny to listen to Vonetta, Fern, and Michael sing about how they’ve been lonely all their lives. I felt like I was watching my sisters singing, really singing, and not clowning. That somehow it would be ruined if they caught me watching them. I didn’t want Vonetta or Fern to stop singing, so I closed my eyes.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“As we walked toward the door, he said, “Delphine, you need to also know you’re a lady. It’s always a lady’s choice and never the other way around."
I didn’t know if he was telling me how to behave at the dance or if he was telling me why he and Cecile never married. I still said, “I know, Papa,” just the right way, although I didn’t know a thing.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Mrs. meant well, but she didn’t understand.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“And then more hugging and kissing went on until Big Ma said, “Let’s stop all this carrying-on, making a grand Negro spectacle for all these folks hanging out their windows.” But no one watched out the window or watched TV more than Big Ma. Before she got halfway to the car, she told us to keep the Lord with us, night and day. Then she said, “Every good-bye ain’t gone.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“A whipping didn’t come without what Big Ma calls “a wisdom.” According to Big Ma, a whipping and a wisdom went together. The wisdom is what you’re supposed to remember long after the sting of the whipping became a memory.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“The few times when Big Ma was sick, Uncle Darnell brought in a pizza pie. Big Ma never liked that and always got well the next day so we wouldn’t get used to take-out food.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Big Ma never made quick-fast-in-a-hurry food. She made food that needed washing before it touched a knife, pot, or pan. Or she made beans that soaked overnight and simmered with neck bones for a good part of the next day. And stewed meat in heavy enamel pots, with bay leaves and carrots and potatoes that soaked up gravy. Big Ma cooked food meant to stick to your insides and keep your belly full. She cooked food that took time.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“We danced until Big Ma told us to stop that noise-making “like a herd of stampeding hippos.” That we should use that energy for praising the Lord. And that was enough to start the other two praising Jesus for helping us to save and I fell in with them, praising and stomping. Then Big Ma said, “That’s not the meaning of ‘Jesus saves.’” But it was too late. “Jesus saves for the Jackson Five” was the only praising going on in our room. Even Big Ma had to laugh.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“All I knew about my parents was that Pa took Cecile in when she was sleeping on a park bench. They had us, and Pa painted the walls every time Cecile wrote on them. Then she left us after Fern was born. Pa wore his long face every day after that for seven years.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“... Miss Marva Hendrix clapped her hands together and said, “That’s a marvelous subject for social studies. Right on!”
Vonetta and Fern had to say it too. “Right on!” And Big Ma scolded them for talking ghetto at the dinner table, half blessed as it was.
...
Big Ma said to Pa, “Do you hear that, son? Are your ears and eyes open? Teaching foolishness in school, and bringing it home to this half-blessed table.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“,,, Miss Marva Hendrix clapped her hands together and said, “That’s a marvelous subject for social studies. Right on!”
Vonetta and Fern had to say it too. “Right on!” And Big Ma scolded them for talking ghetto at the dinner table, half blessed as it was.
...
Big Ma said to Pa, “Do you hear that, son? Are your ears and eyes open? Teaching foolishness in school, and bringing it home to this half-blessed table.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Well, Big Ma had gone down to Friendship Baptist Church to hear Senator Kennedy tell the black people they were American citizens who deserved decent homes, decent education for their children, safe neighborhoods, and opportunities. But Big Ma talked more about taking off her glove to shake a Kennedy’s hand than she talked about his speech. You’d have thought Big Ma would’ve been baking cookies for the “Vote for Bobby” office on Fulton Street, the way she talked and talked about Senator Kennedy. But she said she wouldn’t vote for him because his hair was too long and he let people call him Bobby and not Robert. He was too young, talking about changing things in Bedford-Stuyvesant and in every other ghetto. She said that while that sounded good, and the people hollered and clapped for him, he was still a rich, young Catholic boy whose daddy made millions selling liquor.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Big Ma was funny, as in hard to figure out. She had loved President John F. Kennedy but hadn’t wanted a Catholic president. She loved keeping up with the Kennedys in the supermarket gossip papers but also loved wagging her finger at them.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“I got into an argument in class with Danny McClaren.”
“You’re in class to learn from the teacher,” Big Ma said. “Not to be arguing with some know-nothing boy.”
I heard myself while I retold the whole thing. It sounded silly.
Big Ma never looked up once from her sewing.
...
“My teacher might call.” Might as well let the other shoe drop.
“Let him call. I’ll straighten him out.”
Big Ma was funny, as in hard to figure out.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Big Ma came out of the bathroom to see what was going on.
“John-Isaac,” she said, getting a good look at him. “Do you want to go to jail? Get shot up in the streets?
...
He put his arms around her. “Hey, Ma.”
“Don’t ‘Ma’ me nothing.
...
He took off his beret and planted it on Big Ma’s scarfed head and walked right by her”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“That night I wrote to Cecile. If anyone understood things about books, my mother did.
...
I must have scribbled without stopping. I couldn’t wait to tell her how much I’d grown that day. And that my teacher read a book by Chinwa Acheevie. That I planned to read Things Fall Apart as soon as I finished reading Ginger Pye.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“There is something about sudden darkness in a classroom of twenty-four sixth graders that sets off mischief. There was giggling on one side of the room. Spitballs on the other.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“And wasn’t it good to have a chance to improve upon our first effort?
He didn’t mean for us to answer, but we all said no.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Prayer works.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“P.S. Be eleven.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Every good-bye ain't gone.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“It is a bad thing to bite into hard fruit with little teeth. You will say bad things about the fruit when the problem is your teeth.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Once you give an ultimatum, you have to mean it. You can't pull back. Sometimes your 'or else' is all the power you have and you can't be afraid to do what you threaten to do.”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven

“Heckle and Jeckle again”
― Rita Williams-Garcia, P.S. Be Eleven