Grapes quotes Flashcards
Casy holy
‘But when they’re all workin’ together…that’s right, that’s holy.’
Tom following Casy
‘Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of’
Tom’s transformation
‘Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.’
The resilience of man
‘Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.’
Okie
‘Now it means you’re a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you’re scum.’
Families
‘the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss’
Ma community
‘Use’ ta be the family was fust. It ain’t so now. It’s anybody.’
Ma Rosa’s dream
‘Ma suddenly seemed to know it was all a dream’
Touching oranges
‘a guy with a gun that got the right to kill you if you touch one.’
Business corruption
‘Fella in business got to lie an’ cheat’
Ma poor people
‘If you’re in trouble or hurt or need – go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.’
Women and children
‘Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole’
Ma gender roles
‘She let him have the chance that was his right, and then she said…’
Men stealing
‘beg for bread, to beg for rotting vegetables, to steal when they could’
Tenant farmer shooting
‘I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me.’
The bank
‘It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.’
Tractor
‘One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families.’
Muley Graves
“They ain’t whole, out lonely on the road in a piled-up car. They ain’t alive no more. Them sons-a-bitches killed ‘em.”
Revolution
‘The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one.’
Murderous
‘men ravenous for work, murderous for work.’
Children
‘And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange.’
Food rotting
‘And coroners must fill in the certificates – died of malnutrition – because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.’
grapes of wrath
‘In the souls of people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.’
Ma’s dream
‘Never cold. An’ fruit ever’place, an’ people just bein’ in the nicest places, little white houses in among the orange trees.’
Ma family
‘she seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook’
Salesmen
‘salesmen, neat, deadly, small intent eyes watching for weakness’
Muley on capitalism
‘chopped folks in two for their margin a profit
Tom communist
“I’m bolshevisky”
Ma in control
‘She was the power. She had taken control’
Rich ladies
‘languid, heat-raddled ladies’
Rich aren’t happy
‘Lines of weariness around the eyes, lines of discontent down from the mouth
Racism
“they ain’t a hell of a lot better than gorillas”
Hooverville
‘a great junk pile’
Government camps
“treat ya like a man ‘stead of a dog”
Rich people don’t care
‘comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people’
