Top 280 Angie Thomas Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “See, that’s why I hate it when somebody dies. People do stuff they wouldn’t usually do.”

— Angie Thomas

202. “Fairy tale? No. But I’m not giving up on a better ending. It would be easy to quit if it was just about me, Khalil, that night, and that cop. It’s about way more than that though. It’s about Seven. Sekani. Kenya. DeVante. It’s also about Oscar. Aiyana. Trayvon. Rekia. Michael. Eric. Tamir. John. Ezell. Sandra. Freddie. Alton. Philando. It’s even about that little boy in 1955 who nobody recognized at first – Emmett.”

— Angie Thomas

203. “I was floating after my battle, for real. That feeling when the crowd cheered for me is probably what getting high is like, and I’m addicted.”

— Angie Thomas

204. “See, last year a kid was murdered by a cop just a few streets away from my grandparents’ house. He was unarmed, but the grand jury decided not to charge the officer. There were riots and protests for weeks.”

— Angie Thomas

205. “Aunt Pooh doesn’t go from zero to one hundred – she goes from chill to ready to kill.”

— Angie Thomas

206. “I’m done being who my dad wants me to be,” Miles says. “It’s not worth it.” Does he mean what I think he means? “You’re giving up your rap career?” Miles slowly nods. “Yeah. I am. Besides, is it really mine if I’m not being myself?”

— Angie Thomas

207. “Even if he was, I knew that boy. Watched him grow up with you. He was more than any bad decision he made,” he says. “I hate that I let myself fall into that mind-set of trying to rationalize his death. And at the end of the day, you don’t kill someone for opening a car door.”

— Angie Thomas

208. “I don’t try to see who got shot or who did it. You can’t snitch if you don’t know anything.”

— Angie Thomas

209. “I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.”

— Angie Thomas

210. “By any means necessary didn’t keep Brother Malcolm from dying, possibly at the hands of his own people.”

— Angie Thomas

211. “That’s what we call our goal, the come up.”

— Angie Thomas

212. “One of my baby photos smiles back at me, permanently etched on his arm with Something to live for, something to die for written beneath it. Seven and Sekani are on his other arm with the same words beneath them. Love letters in the simplest form.”

— Angie Thomas

213. “Folks kill me, thinking they know what I think.”

— Angie Thomas

214. “Church is full of people with plenty to say and nothing to do. You’d think some of them would help us instead of talk about us, but I guess it’s easy to say you love Jesus and harder to act like him.”

— Angie Thomas

215. “We can love her with everything in us, but it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t love herself.”

— Angie Thomas

216. “Thank you so much for having the bravery to do this.” There’s that word again. Bravery. Brave peoples’ legs don’t shake. Brave people don’t feel like puking. Brave people sure don’t have to remind themselves how to breathe if they think about that night too hard. If bravery is a medical condition, everybody’s misdiagnosed me.”

— Angie Thomas

217. “Forget what anyone expects: the only person I have to truly worry about is me.”

— Angie Thomas

218. “I can’t explain the look in her eyes, but it knows me better than I know myself. It wraps me up and warms me from the inside out.”

— Angie Thomas

219. “Although not all of you are “blood” family, you’re “love” family.”

— Angie Thomas

220. “God gave you a brain. You don’t need theirs.”

— Angie Thomas

221. “Momma thinks coming to Uncle Carlos’s house is normal, but Chris is the kind of normal I really want. The normal where I don’t have to choose which Starr to be.”

— Angie Thomas

222. “Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I drag myself into this classroom and hand my phone over to Mrs. Murray. Usually I’m cool with an entire hour of not knowing what the president tweeted.”

— Angie Thomas

223. “Occasionally she goes “Mmm” at some line the same way my grandma does during a sermon. Poetry’s Mrs. Murray’s religion.”

— Angie Thomas

224. “That might be the problem. A lot of the good stuff is from the past. The Jonas Brothers, High School Musical, our shared grief. Our friendship is based on memories. What do we have now?”

— Angie Thomas

225. “I try to forget that he has an entire floor as big as my house and hired help that looks like me.”

— Angie Thomas

226. “So basically,′ Scrap says, ‘you won the popular vote ‘cause everybody loved you in the Ring, but you still lost the election since he the one getting game?’ I shake my head. ‘Too soon.”

— Angie Thomas

227. “Sekani means “joy and merriment.” While he does bring some comedic relief every now and then, I wanted Sekani to be more than that. He represents that pure, genuine black-boy joy that so many young black men possess before life gets in the way, before society stereotypes them.”

— Angie Thomas

228. “There’s Hailey, sitting on top of it, having a heated discussion with curly-haired, dimpled Luke. I think that’s foreplay for them. They’ve liked each other since sixth grade, and if your feelings can survive the awkwardness of middle school you should stop playing around and go out.”

— Angie Thomas

229. “Never let their actions determine what you do. The moment you do, you’ve given them the power.”

— Angie Thomas

230. “All these feelings started when we were ten. I have this real clear memory of us wrestling in Malik’s front yard. I was The Rock and he was John Cena. We were obsessed with wrestling videos on YouTube. I pinned Malik down, and while sitting on top of him in his front yard, I suddenly wanted to kiss him. It. Freaked. Me. Out. So I punched him and said in my best The Rock voice, “I’m laying the smackdown on your candy ass!” Basically, I tried to ignore my sexual awakening by imitating The Rock.”

— Angie Thomas

231. “Having to is a responsibility. Wanting to is love.”

— Angie Thomas

232. “He was more than any bad decision he made.”

— Angie Thomas

233. “Um, excuse you, but Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon.”

— Angie Thomas

234. “Man, you ain’t white. You light-skinned.”

— Angie Thomas

235. “I swear King never give a you-know-what. I think I care more ’bout him than he care ’bout himself.”

— Angie Thomas

236. “I’ve cried over you. But I don’t think you’ve cried over yourself, and that’s the problem” -Jay.”

— Angie Thomas

237. “Besties before testes.”

— Angie Thomas

238. “It would be easy to quit if it was just about me.”

— Angie Thomas

239. “Momma had told me, “See, she looks asleep,” but when I squeezed her hand, her eyes never opened. Daddy carried me out the sanctuary as I screamed for her to wake up.”

— Angie Thomas

240. “There’s a beast that roams my street and he goes by the name crack cocaine. It’s kinda strange how he gets in the veins and turns mothers into strangers who only share the same name.”

— Angie Thomas

241. “Their faces are familiar, but you don’t get names and life stories when you’re bagging folks’ groceries.”

— Angie Thomas

242. “The first Aunt Viv was the best Aunt Viv.”

— Angie Thomas

243. “Long as I can do it my way.”

— Angie Thomas

244. “It’s not logical for a bird to be that big,” I bite out. Really, it’s not. Tweety Bird? The love of my life. Big Bird? I don’t trust that ho. Plus, have they seen his nest? He probably hides bodies in it.”

— Angie Thomas

245. “Good afternoon, Ms. Carter,” Dr. Davis, the headmaster, says. He’s leaving as I’m going in and doesn’t wait for my response. Does he know all the students by name, or just the ones who are black like him? I hate that I think about stuff like that now.”

— Angie Thomas

246. “I didn’t mention that the officer pointed his gun at me. I didn’t say something right, and now that cop’s not getting arrested.”

— Angie Thomas

247. “Shout-out to Michelle Obama. That health kick of hers made the school take the good stuff from the vending machines and made my business very lucrative.”

— Angie Thomas

248. “My thing is, girls usually date boys who are like their daddies, and I ain’t gon’ lie, when I saw that white – Chris,” he corrects, and I smile. “I got worried. Thought I turned you against black men or didn’t set a good example of a black man. I couldn’t handle that.”

— Angie Thomas

249. “Claim folks need to act peaceful, but rolling through here like we in a goddamn war.”

— Angie Thomas

250. “We were ten, we didn’t know what happened after you died.”

— Angie Thomas