Quotable Fri Apr 25 2008
Quotable Friday
Every Friday is Quotable Friday on the book club blog, where we highlight a notable passage from a book with a Chicago connection. This week's quotable is from the autobiography American Daughter by Era Bell Thompson, which was first published in 1946:
Cranks, philanthropists, or plain, everyday Americans, I like them all. For every bad one, there are twenty good ones. We can't always find jobs for them, we aren't always successful at getting them to take the jobs we find, but we can give them a kind and sympathetic audience. It is surprising to know how many people in the world are hungry for kindness, to have someone believe in them. And I do believe in them.
When a forelady in a box factory asks, "Isn't it wonderful to live in a country where you can sit down and tell your troubles to someone and have them listen?"
- Alice Maggio
Bigger Thomas is a young black man in 1940s Chicago who accidentally kills Mary, the daughter of the wealthy, white Dalton family, for whom he works as a chauffeur. Bigger's attempts to preserve his innocence go horribly awry when the public and the press decide his guilt even before he is caught and tried.
