Take My Hand Quotes

“Our bodies belonged to us. Poor, disabled, it didn’t matter. These were our bodies, and we had the right to “decide what to do with them. It was as if they were just taking our bodies from us, as if we didn’t even belong to ourselves.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Sometimes love can kill you, just like hate. You love too hard and you can lose yourself in other folks' sorrow. You hate too hard and you know the rest of that story.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“There is no greater right for a woman than having a choice, Anne. And I exercised that right. Fully and consciously.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“I never knew that good intentions could be just as destructive as bad ones.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“The past doesn't work that way. You can't just make it disappear. You can't pretend certain things didn't happen.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Our bodies belonged to us. Poor, disabled, it didn’t matter. These were our bodies, and we had the right to decide what to do with them.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Good intentions, we now knew, did not excuse the wounding.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Sometimes love can kill you, just like hate. You love too hard and you can lose yourself in other folks’ sorrow. You hate too hard and you know the rest of that story. Take care of yourself. You can’t help others if you’re down and out. I have to remind myself of that all the time.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“There wasn’t any justice for little Black girls, and never had been.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Working in the name of the good did not negate the hurt. As long as these injustices continued, all of us were culpable.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“all the numbers merged into one outraged thought: How dare they? Our bodies belonged to us. Poor, disabled, it didn’t matter. These were our bodies, and we had the right to decide what to do with them. It was as if they were just taking our bodies from us, as if we didn’t even belong to ourselves.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“A Black statistician by the name of Bill Jenkins found out about the study and tried to ring the alarm. You know why nobody listened?” “Why?” I whispered. “Because even though regular folks didn’t know, the medical folks knew. In some respects, the government did this in plain sight. They were publishing articles in medical journals about it and everything. Either they didn’t see what was wrong with it, or nobody cared about poor colored folks down in Alabama.” “Or they thought they were doing good,” I said.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“She wore a belted yellow dress that screamed springtime even though it was chilly out. Anybody in a dress that bright had to be doing some good in the world, I decided.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“It baffled me how hatred and goodness could coexist. The world was an enigma. My country was an enigma. Still, she was mine. And I loved every square inch of her.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“When it becomes clear that a woman of a certain age has not married or had children, folks like to think there’s something wrong with her.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“The world was an enigma. My country was an enigma. Still, she was mine. And I loved every square inch of her.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“There are a lot of things a mother can say to hurt her child, even long after the child is an adult.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Medicine has taught me, really taught me, to accept the things I cannot change. A difficult-to-swallow serenity prayer.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“They were more than illiterate farmers, more than victims who’d been duped by the federal government. They were a family who, given other opportunities, could have accomplished much more.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“My hope is that this novel will provoke discussions about culpability in a society that still deems poor, Black, and disabled as categories unfit for motherhood. In a world inundated by information about these tragedies and more, I still passionately believe in the power of the novel (and its readers!) to raise the alarm, influence hearts, and impact lives.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“The moral and ethical questions I explore in Take My Hand remain salient today. In 2013, the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that between 2006 and 2010, nearly 150 women in California state prisons had been sterilized without official approval. A year later, the Associated Press reported on multiple instances of prosecutors in Nashville, Tennessee, submitting permanent birth control as part of plea deals. In 2020, a whistleblower alleged that immigrant women detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were being forcibly sterilized without their consent in US detainment facilities. In fact, compulsory sterilization of “unfit” inmates of public institutions is still federally protected by a 1927 US Supreme Court ruling, Buck v. Bell.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“You are now the age that I was then, and I hope you will benefit from the wisdom of our mistakes. This knowledge, this triumph, can, if we let it, make all of us stronger. If we let it.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“it was still difficult for me to listen to Lou declare that Mace and his mother had been outsmarted by Mrs. Seager. Yes, it was true, neither of them could read, but his portrayal of them as simple country people whose priority was day-to-day survival fell short. These people were smarter than that. Mrs. Williams could put a piece of sweet potato pie in her mouth and know exactly how much nutmeg was used. Mace could stick his finger in the soil and tell you what would and would not grow in it, could recall the names of trees I had never even known existed. They were more than illiterate farmers, more than victims who’d been duped by the federal government. They were a family who, given other opportunities, could have accomplished much more.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“What I can say to you is this: We are at the center of our own destiny. Always have been. Yes, there have been times this country has tried to destroy us. But we have not been doormats. No, ma’am. We have fought and used every resource. Lou Feldman was a resource. And I grew to love him. But this story was and always will be about those sisters. I’m talking to you right now because of them. And the idea that Lou or I or any of us were redeemed by this whole thing ignores all the contradictions, the baggage we came in with, and the baggage we left carrying.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“For as long as I can remember, the women in my family have made the best life they knew how. I bet when you first come out to the house on old man Adair’s place, you thought I was a nasty woman.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“In order to survive the humiliations of Jim Crow life, we sustained one another through laughter, food, music. And to that end, in the clutch of a community’s embrace, Centennial Hill nourished us, and I was protected from the worst of it. It was a place where folks saved the tears for church and left their burdens on the altar. It seemed unfathomable to me that anything like this would ever happen to someone close to me. Even with all I knew about the cruelty of humans—the beatings, the murders, the disappearances—I had still somehow underestimated people, and the girls had paid a price for that naiveté. No wonder my car got hit. It was a lesson on the laws of physics. There are consequences in life.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“When I say to you that what happened to those girls was the greatest hurt of my life, I am speaking the God’s honest truth. To understand that statement, you have to understand where I came from. When I was growing up Daddy had a good practice, and it afforded us some things. We owned our own house, took vacations. I got my hair done in a real beauty shop, not somebody’s kitchen. Our little family managed to live dignified in undignified times. Daddy shined his shoes every morning. Mama wore earrings. These little acts might seem simple to you, but baby, let me tell you. They held back the storm.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Miss Pope whispered, “Now, you know how some white folks feel about Black bodies. They think we can tolerate pain better than them. According to some of these documents I’m about to show you, some of them even thought syphilis couldn’t kill us. It was as much an experiment about the effects of the disease as it was a crazy white man’s idea of a laboratory game with Black bodies.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“Everything was lopsided. Volunteering their personal information was part of the bargain of public assistance. Tell us everything about yourself and, in return, we’ll hand you a sliver of a slice of American pie. In the meantime, we won’t tell you anything, not even what we’re going to do for you.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand

“I want you to know something. Of course I had opportunities at love. They didn’t work out, but I have not been entirely loveless. And yes, I took prophylactic precautions with a dedication that was more powerful than any maternal urge. These were my decisions. There is no greater right for a woman than having a choice, Anne. And I exercised that right. Fully and consciously.”
― Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand