| dbp:quote
|
- Dana reporting on the slaves' attitude toward Rufus as slavemaster: "Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time." (en)
- Dana obeying Rufus' instructions to burn her paperback on the history of slavery in America:
"The fire flared up and swallowed the dry paper, and I found my thoughts shifting to Nazi book burnings. Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of 'wrong' ideas." (en)
- Dana explains to Kevin that she will not allow Rufus to turn her into property:
"I am not a horse or a sack of wheat. If I have to seem to be property, if I have to accept limits on my freedom for Rufus's sake, then he also has to accept limits – on his behavior towards me. He has to leave me enough control of my own life to make living look better to me than killing and dying." (en)
- After briefly considering giving in to Rufus' sexual advances, Dana steels herself to stab him:
"I could feel the knife in my hand, still slippery with perspiration. A slave was a slave. Anything could be done to her. And Rufus was Rufus — erratic, alternately generous and vicious. I could accept him as my ancestor, my younger brother, my friend, but not as my master, and not as my lover." (en)
- Rufus expressing his "destructive single-minded love" for Alice in a conversation with Dana:
"I begged her not to go with him," he said quietly. "Do you hear me, I begged her!"
I said nothing. I was beginning to realize that he loved the woman—to her misfortune. There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one.
"I didn't want to just drag her off into the bushes," said Rufus. "I never wanted it to be like that. But she kept saying no. I could have had her in the bushes years ago if that was all I wanted."
...
"If I lived in your time, I would have married her. Or tried to." (en)
- Kevin and Dana differing in their perspectives of the 19th Century:
"This could be a great time to live in," Kevin said once. "I keep thinking what an experience it would be to stay in it— go West and watch the building of the country, see how much of the Old West mythology is true."
"West," I said bitterly. "That's where they're doing it to the Indians instead of the blacks!"
He looked at me strangely. He had been doing that a lot lately." (en)
|
