How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
[Michael's intentions] were not good. He wanted a race of exotics skipping around being picturesque for him. What were those welfare mothers supposed to put in those pots? (3.131)
Valerian doesn't have much time for his son Michael's progressive, hippie mentality. According to Valerian, Michael doesn't actually care about people at all; he cares about the idea of being someone who cares about people. That's way, according to Valerian, Michael just wants to live among non-white people so he can feel like he's wiser than most white people. But there's nothing authentic about it, as far as Valerian is concerned.
Quote #8
She realized then that all her life she thought they felt nothing at all. Oh, well, yes, she knew they talked and laughed and died and had babies. But she had never attached any feeling to any of it. (4.220)
Deep down, Thérèse doesn't think that white people actually have any feelings. She's willing to admit that they do things like most human beings do, like talk and laugh and die. But she doesn't think that they actually have any deep emotions on the inside.
Quote #9
"She was a wet-nurse," he told Son, "and made her living from white babies. Then formula came and she almost starve to death. Fishing kept her alive." (5.139)
According to Gideon, Thérèse lived most of her life working for white family and being a wet-nurse for white babies: she let white babies drink her breast milk. This role is chock full of symbolic importance, because by having a black woman feed white children with her breast milk, Toni Morrison shows just how dependent white people are on the service of black people, especially women like Thérèse.