“I used to believe in 'em [lines]. I don't anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain't." - Aibileen”

“But I do not know what to tell myself. Stuart needs "space" and "time," as if this were physics and not a human relationship.”

“they say it's like true love, good help. you only get one in a lifetime.....there is so much you don't know about a person. i wonder if i could've made her days a little bit easier, if I'd tried. i...”

“And she is remembering the words I put in her head...."You is kind," she say, "you is smart. You is important.”

“I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming - and it come in ever white child's life - wh...”

“When Demetrie got sick, we knew it was our responsibility to take care of her and pay her medical bills. And we embraced that. But the tricky part is, like so many families in the South, we also ex...”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't li...”

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”

“Fear is all in the mind”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick successio...”

“It wasn't an epidemic yet because no one knew about it.”

“Safety is largely an illusion, and panic knows this.”