Broken Days Quotes

“Ebie, dear child." And he took me in his strong arms.
"You aren't angry with me?" I couldn't believe it.
"Angry? Of course not. Courage is shown in different ways, Ebie. If others don't always recognize it, that's their fault, not ours.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days

“I can't do it, Uncle Richard," I said.
"You can. You have it in you to do it. You're a good person."
"I'm not. I don't want to be a good person." I started to cry.
He held me close then. And what he said surprised me. "What makes you think any of us want to be good people, Ebie? You know, I never agreed with these Puritan preachers, who tell us we're all inherently bad. I think we're all inherently good. And we fight against it, all our lives.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days

“Your uncle Lawrence is a very moral man. He knows, in his heart, what is right. And he'll do it, no matter what people say of him."
I nodded. "But how do we know when we're doing the right thing, Father?"
He drew up the horse's reins in front of our house. "We don't always, Ebie. Answers don't come easily. At least they never have, to me. I've done many a wrong thing in my time. But I've always tried to make up for it.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days

“I'm a patient man, Ebie. I had to learn that in prison. But I learned other things, too. That there is so much trouble in this world, we need to do everything we can, every day of our lives, to stop trouble from happening. Not cause it.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days

“You may have him to yourself, this grandfather who does not wish to be one. He told me he could not believe my mother would choose not to return to him. He cannot accept this. Because it injures his pride. Who could return to such a man as this?"
I ran my tongue along my lips and said nothing.
She gathered her bundles. "He does not even wish to be a grandfather to you. But your eyes are blinded when you look on him as if you looked on the sun."
I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that I saw him for what he was. But I could not speak.
"One day this sun will go black for you. And you will shrivel and die. I will not die. Because I have been raised to make my own sun. Here." And she tapped her chest. "Inside me. I was raised Shawnee. I do not need him. I do not need anybody."
I nodded.
"You little Shemanese girl, you need everybody. You were not raised to be strong.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days

“And I longed to tell Uncle Lawrence, to show him I knew when to keep quiet.
But I'd long since found out that too often we can't say the very thing that will redeem us. And if that isn't being grown-up, I don't know what is.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days

“He looked up at her. Something passed between them. And I saw that he answered to her, too. But that he didn't answer to her authority, like the governor's, or her shrillness, like Aunt Hannah's, but to her gentleness.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days