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The Member of the Wedding QUOTES

The Member of the Wedding QUOTES

1 " They are the we of me. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

2 " It was the year Frankie thought about the world. And she did not see it as a round school globe, with the countries neat and different-colored. She thought of the world as huge and cracked and loose
and turning a thousand miles an hour. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

3 " There are all these people here I don't know by sight or by name. And we pass alongside each other and don't have any connection. And they don't know me and I don't know them. And now I'm leaving town and there are all these people I will never know. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

4 " I think I have a vague idea what you were driving at," she said. "We all of us somehow caught. We born this way and we don't know why. But we caught anyhow. I born Berenice. You born Frankie. John Henry born John Henry. And maybe we wants to widen and bust free. But no matter what we do we still caught. Me is me and you is you and he is he. We each one of us somehow caught all by ourself. Is that what you was trying to say? "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

5 " Because things accumulate around your name," said Berenice. "You have a name and one thing after another happens to you, and you behave in various ways and do things, so that soon the name begins to have meaning. Things have accumulated around the name, if it is bad and you have a bad reputation, then you just can't jump out of your name and escape like that. And if it is good and you have a good reputation, then you should be content and satisfied. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

6 " The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

7 " She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

8 " Listen,” F. Jasmine said. “What I’ve been trying to say is this. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each other, and touch each other, and stay together year in and year out in the same room. Yet always I am I, and you are you. And I can’t ever be anything else but me, and you can ever be anything else but you. Have you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange? "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

9 " It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

10 " It happened that green and crazy summer when Frankie was twelve years old. This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. Frankie had become an unjoined person and hung around in doorways, and she was afraid. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

11 " We all of us somehow caught. We born this way or that way and we don't know why. But we caught any how. I was born Berenice. You Born Franky. John Henry born John Henry. And maybe we wants to widen and bust free. But no matter what we do we still caught. Me is me and you is you and he is he. We each one of us somehow caught all by ourself. I'm caught worse than you is. Because I'm Black, because I'm colored. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

12 " She decided to donate blood to the Red Cross; she wanted to donate a quart a week and her blood would be in the veins of Australians and Fighting French and Chinese, all over the whole world, and it would be as though she were close kin to all of these people. She could hear the army doctors saying that the blood of Frankie Addams was the reddest and the strongest blood that they had ever known. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

13 " I wish I was somebody else except me. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

14 " You have a name and one thing after another happens to you, and you behave in various ways and do things, so that soon the name begins to have a meaning. Things have accumulated around your name. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

15 " There was a hollow in her chest, but at the bottom of this emptiness a heavy weight pressed down and bruised her stomach, so that she felt sick. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

16 " She did not know why she was sad, but because of this peculiar sadness, she began to realize she ought to leave the town. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

17 " But the music did not come again. The tune was left broken, unfinished. And the drawn tightness she could no longer stand. She felt she must do something wild and sudden that never had been done before. She hit herself on the head with her fist, but that did not help any at all. And she began to talk aloud, although at first she paid no attention to her own words and did not know in advance what she would say. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

18 " The world is certainty a sudden place. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

19 " April that year came sudden and still, and the green of the trees was a wild bright green. The pale wistarias bloomed all over town, and silently the blossoms shattered. There was something about the green trees and the flowers of April that made Frankie sad. She did not know why she was sad, but because of this peculiar sadness, she began to realize she ought to leave the town. "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding

20 " I know, but what is it all about? People loose and at
the same time caught. Caught and loose. All these people
and you don’t know what joins them up. There’s bound to
be some sort of reason and connection. Yet somehow I
can’t seem to name it. I don’t know.”
“If you did you would be God,” said Berenice. “Didn’t
you know that? "

― Carson McCullers , The Member of the Wedding