The Sound and the Fury Family Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

The first I knew was when you jumped up all of a sudden and said, "Did you ever have a sister? did you?" and when he said No, you hit him. I noticed you kept on looking at him, but you didn't seem to be paying any attention to what anybody was saying until you jumped up and asked him if he had any sisters. (2.881)

Quentin gets into a fight with Gerald Bland because he likes to talk about the ladies. Because so much of Quentin’s life revolves upon his relationship with his sister, he relates to all other women as if they were his – or somebody’s – sister.

Quote #8

"I know I'm just a trouble and a burden to you," she says, crying on the pillow.

"I ought to know it," I says. "You've been telling me that for thirty years. Even Ben ought to know it now." (3.12-13)

Jason, Mrs. Compson’s favorite child, is the only one willing to listen to her whining – and that’s because he uses it to feed his anger about, well, everything.

Quote #9

Then when she sent Quentin home for me to feed too I says I guess that's right too, instead of me having to go way up north for a job they sent the job down here to me and then Mother begun to cry and I says it's not that I have any objection to having it here; if it's any satisfaction to you I'll quit work and nurse it myself and let you and Dilsey keep the flour barrel full, or Ben. Rent him out to a sideshow; there must be folks somewhere that would pay a dime to see him […] (3.147)

Jason thinks of his family in economic terms – the amount of money that it costs to feed them, the amount he lost by not getting the job at the bank. The flour barrel becomes a symbol of how he measures his money – remember how he used to make (and sell) kites using flour as paste?