Song of Solomon quotes

Question 1

“Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”

Answer 1

Said by Guitar after seeing the white peacock for the first time (Chapter 8)

Question 2

“But don’t give me love. I can’t take no more love, Lord. I can’t carry it. Just like Mr. Smith. He couldn’t carry it. It’s too heavy.”

Answer 2

Said by Henry Porter in Chapter 1; he cannot carry the burden of being one of the Seven Days (just as Robert Smith couldn’t when he jumped of the roof)

Question 3

“Some of my days were hungry ones.”

Answer 3

Said by Hagar to Reba and Pilate when Milkman goes to Pilate’s house; she isn’t hungry for food, but for love (foreshadows Hagar dying from a broken heart)

Question 4

“Mama liked it. Liked the name. Said it was new and would wipe out the past. Wipe it all out.”

Answer 4

Said by Macon to Milkman about Sing wanting to keep the “Dead” misnomer when he gets back from Pilate’s house

Question 5

“You can’t fly on off and leave a body”

Answer 5

Said many times by Macon Dead I and Pilate; Macon is actually talking about his own body in the cave, not the white man Macon II killed

Question 6

“You got a life? Live it! Live the mother**in life! Live it!”

Answer 6

Said by Guitar to Milkman in Chapter 8; makes Milkman realize he has to find his purpose

Question 7

“You don’t listen to people. Your ear is on your head, but it’s not connected to your brain.”

Answer 7

Said by Circe to Milkman in Chapter 11

Question 8

“Just as the consequences of Milkman’s own stupidity would remain, and regret would always outweigh the things he was proud of having done.”

Answer 8

Milkman must carry the shoebox containing part of Hagar as a reminder of how he had caused her death by not loving her one bit

Question 9

‘Without ever leaving the ground, she could fly.”

Answer 9

When Pilate dies, a birds swoops down and carries away her earring; because she always knew who she was and who her people were, she knew how to fly

Question 10

“She was the third beer.”

Answer 10

Said by milkman about Hagar in Chapter 4; symbolizes how he uses her for sex and to seem cool in the Blood Bank

Question 11

“For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”

Answer 11

Milkman leaping at Guitar at the very end of the novel; Milkman either dies or flies, but he is empowered by the knowledge of himself and his people, just like Pilate was

Question 12

“I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more.”

Answer 12

Said by Pilate in the last chapter as she lays shot; emphasizes that the point of living life is love; tracks back to Pilate proclaiming Hagar was loved at her funeral in Chapter 13

Question 13

It sounded old. Deserve. Old and tired and beaten to death. Deserve. Now it seemed to him that he was always saying or thinking that he didn’t deserve some bad luck, or some bad treatment from others.”

Answer 13

Part of Milkman’s epiphany sitting against the tree, realizing how the source of his troubles has been his own ignorance and vanity (begins to take responsibility for his behavior)

Question 14

“Perhaps that’s what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?”

Answer 14

Said by Milkman

Question 15

But riding backward made him uneasy. It was like flying blind, and not knowing where he was going— just where he had been—troubled him.”

Answer 15

As a kid, Milkman has to sit backwards in his family’s Packard (Chapter 2); ties back to “in order to move forward in life, one must remember where one has been.”

Question 16

“It was becoming a habit—this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had.”

Answer 16

When Milkman turns around and accidentally urinates on Lena in Chapter 2

Question 17

“Pilate can’t teach you a thing you can use in this world. Maybe the next, but not this one. Let me tell you right now the one important thing you’ll ever need to know: Own things. And let the things you own own other things.”

Answer 17

Said by Macon to Milkman when he comes back from Pilate’s house; ties into Macon’s love of material possessions (we now know that this is because he was the most happy when he worked with his dad on the farm in Montour County) (c. 2)

Question 18

“Maybe Guitar was right—partly. His life was pointless, aimless, and it was true that he didn’t concern himself an awful lot about other people.”

Answer 18

Chapter 4; it is our relationships with others that give us our humanity

Question 19

“What harm did I do you on my knees?”

Answer 19

Said by Ruth to Milkman when he follows her to the cemetery; she avoids answering his probing questions because she knows she gave up everything to save him

Question 20

“Her son had never been a person to her, a separate real person. He had always been a passion.”

Answer 20

Milkman was a source of love Ruth could never get from Macon, her one success (when Ruth goes to Pilate’s house to stop Hagar from killing Milkman)

Question 21

“Ain’t nothin goin to kill him but his own ignorance, and won’t no woman ever kill him. What’s likelier is that it’ll be a woman save his life.”

Answer 21

Said by Pilate to Ruth when Ruth visits her house; big foreshadowing for the end of the novel

Question 22

“What you doin with a heart anyway?”

Answer 22

Said by Guitar to Milkman in Chapter 8; Milkman doesn’t care for anyone but himself; foreshadowing to the bobcat scene

Question 23

‘I don’t make roses anymore, and you have pissed your last in this house.”

Answer 23

Said by Lena to Guitar in Chapter 9; she vows not to be an object manipulated by the men in her family anymore

Question 24

“But it was a living breath this time, not a dying one.”

Answer 24

Milkman decides to take a living breath and starts to truly live after surviving Guitar’s attempt to kill him on the hunt

Question 25

“When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do.”

Answer 25

Milkman realizes this on the ride back to Michigan from Shalimar upon reading all the place names and remembering the names of the people he’s encountered; names are a reminder of self and of one’s legacy

Question 26

“Look. It’s the condition our condition is in. Everybody wants the life of a black man

Answer 26

Said by Guitar to Milkman in Chapter 10 when Milkman tells him about the gold in the first place; comes back in Chapter 15 when Milkman realizes the only 2 people who’ve never wanted him dead are Ruth and Pilate, and he’s never so much as made a cup of tea for them