How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Later that night when the kids were in bed I realized exactly what was bugging me: the idea of Lou Ann reading magazines for child-raising tips and recipes and me coming home grouchy after a hard day's work. We were like some family on a TV commercial, with names like Myrtle and Fred. I could just hear us striking up a conversation about air fresheners. (6.60)
It makes Taylor uncomfortable to think that she and Lou Ann are "playing house." Taylor wants to be friends, not pretend to be a family. And since she picks names like Taylor and Turtle and knows people like Newt, you can't blame her for thinking "Fred" is kind of strange.
Quote #5
"I'll tell you one thing," Lou Ann said. "When something was bugging Angel, he'd never of stayed up half the night with me talking and eating everything that wasn't nailed down. You're not still mad, are you?
I held up two fingers. "Peace, sister," I said, knowing full well that only a complete hillbilly would say this in the 1980s. Love beads came to Pittman the same year as the dial tone. (6.110-111)
In true chick-lit and chick-flick style, The Bean Trees proves that there are very few arguments in the world that a pile of junk food and an all-night gab session won't fix. The chapter in which this passage appears may be called "Valentine's Day," but sounds like a Galentine's Day in true Leslie Knope fashion to us. Let the waffles with whipped cream commence.
Quote #6
"I ought to be shot for looking like this," she'd tell the mirror in the front hall before going out the door. "I look like I've been drug through hell backwards," she would say on just any ordinary day. "Like death warmed over. Like something the cat puked up."
I wanted the mirror to talk back, to say, "Shush, you do not," but naturally it just mouthed the same words back at her, leaving her so forlorn that I was often tempted to stick little notes on it. (7.70-71)
Although Taylor does her best to be a supportive friend to Lou Ann, she soon comes to realize that her efforts to boost Lou-Ann's self-esteem are always going to fall on rocky ground. Try as she might, Taylor knows that when it comes right down to it, it's up to Lou Ann to be a better friend to herself. Still, though, a sticky note or two couldn't hurt…