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1 " I’m gonna take your mother back to Lincoln,” I says. “I’m gonna get her a new coffin, a nice one, and a nice angel headstone. I’ll put her in the ground real good and all at my expense.” I expect Billy to smile or say thank you or something but she is looking hard at the wrapped quilt, thinking. There’s a part of the dress, just a little bit of the hem "
― Suzan-Lori Parks , Getting Mother's Body
2 " At least Billy won't be traveling alone. It ain't safe out there for a Negro gal. It's 1963 and a Negro life is cheap. The life of a Negro man is cheap. The life of a Negro woman is cheaper. The price of everything is always going up though, so could be that the price of a Negro life too will get high. Maybe the price'll rise to reach the value of the cost we brought in slavery times. Not this year though. Not the next. Maybe by nineteen hundred and seventy. Maybe by nineteen hundred and eighty or nineteen hundred and ninety the price will go up. Maybe by the year two thousand, but surely, the world will end by then. "
3 " This next song I'ma sing is a song I wrote about a man I used to know. It's called "Big Hole Blues."My man is digging in my dirtDigging a hole just for me.He's digging in my dirtDigging a big hole just for me. It's as long as I am tall, goes down as deep as the deep blue sea. He says the hole he's digging is hole enough for two. He says the hole he's digging is hole enough for two. He says he'll put me down there in itAnd put my boyfriend in it too. He says he's just pulling my leg, but I go to play it safe. He says he's just pulling my leg, but I go to play it safe. I done packed up all my clothes, I'm gonna leave this big old holey place. "
