Chains Quotes

[Mr. Robert] had showed up a few weeks earlier to visit Miss Mary Finch, his aunt and only living relation. He looked around her tidy farm, listened to her ragged, wet cough, and moved in. Miss Mar...

Half my roll disappeared in one bite. It was the first decent food I'd had since Jenny's kitchen. Curzon watched me without saying a word. When I licked the butter off my fingers, he gave me his ro...

I curtsied, bewildered at the speed of it all. Yesterday I had been aboard a ship. The day before that, sold in a tavern. The day before that, I woke up in my own bed and watched an old woman die....

At the end of the block there were soldiers on watch in front of City Hall; a dozen or so men standing around a campfire, with more dozing on the ground […] Their guns were close to hand. I crept...

"Slaves don't read," Mr. Robert said. "I should beat you for lying, girl."Pastor Weeks held up his hand. "It's true. Your aunt had some odd notions. She taught the child herself. I disapproved, of...

My belly flipped with worry. I was breathing hard as if I'd run all the way to the village and back. This was the moment we'd been waiting for, the one that Momma promised would come. It was up to...

"Isabel, remember your place." Pastor Weeks fumbled with the latch on his Bible. "You and your sister belong to Mr. Robert now. He'll be a good master to you." (2.28)

"You always were the best rememberer I ever saw. We used to make a game of it. Tell you a line to memorize, or a song. Didn't matter how much time had passed, you'd have the whole thing in your mou...

[Mr. Robert] released me with a shove and pointed to the cemetery where they buried white people. "Go pray for her that owned you, girl." (1.34)

"Smallpox is tricky," Miss Mary Finch said to me when Momma died. "There's no telling who it'll take." The pox had left Ruth and me with scars like tiny stars scattered on our skin. It took Momma h...