Concrete Rose

by

Angie Thomas

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Concrete Rose makes teaching easy.

Maverick Carter Character Analysis

Maverick Carter, the novel’s protagonist, is a 17-year-old African American boy living in inner-city Garden Heights. Maverick is in the King Lords gang, which he joined at age 12. His dad, Pops, used to be the gang’s leader—and when Pops went to prison, he had so many enemies that Maverick was going to be in danger without the gang’s protection. Though Maverick has close friends in the gang and wants to make money by selling drugs for the gang, he also nurses dreams of attending college and leaving Garden Heights. All of these dreams seem to disappear in an instant when Maverick learns that he accidentally fathered a son with a girl named Iesha, his best friend King’s girlfriend. When Iesha abandons the baby, Maverick becomes a full-time dad to his son, whom he names Seven. Though Maverick chafes against all the responsibilities he now has as a father, he adores Seven and wants to do what’s best for him. At his cousin Dre’s prodding, Maverick agrees to take a job with Mr. Wyatt, which includes some work in Mr. Wyatt’s grocery store and his garden. Though Maverick resents how little money he makes, he gradually comes to enjoy the job. This begins to change when someone murders Dre and when Maverick discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Lisa, is pregnant with his baby. Desperate to support his family, Maverick decides to sell drugs with King. And Maverick also feels that, as Dre’s cousin, it’s his responsibility to avenge Dre’s death by murdering his killer. When Maverick figures out that the hustler Red killed Dre, King helps Maverick acquire a gun. But as Maverick prepares to kill Red, he finds he can’t do it. Though Maverick at first sees this as a failure, Lisa helps Maverick see that this makes him a man who’s willing to stick around and support his family by not going to prison. Maverick eventually decides to pursue his GED and takes a full-time position with Mr. Wyatt—and he decides that he’d also like to leave the King Lords.

Maverick Carter Quotes in Concrete Rose

The Concrete Rose quotes below are all either spoken by Maverick Carter or refer to Maverick Carter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Masculinity and Fatherhood Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

One of them yell out, “Don’t let them punk you, Li’l Don and Li’l Zeke!”

It don’t matter that my pops been locked up for nine years or that King’s pops been dead almost as long. They still Big Don, the former crown, and Big Zeke, his right-had man. That make me Li’l Don and King Li’l Zeke. Guess we not old enough to go by our own names yet.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), King, Pops, Pops, Ma, Dre, Shawn
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

I study Iesha real hard. She got bags under her eyes she didn’t have before. “Anybody helping you with him?”

Help?” her momma says, like I cussed. “Who supposed to help her? Me?”

“C’mon now, Yolanda,” says Ma. “This is a lot for anyone to handle, let alone a seventeen-year-old.”

“T’uh! She wanna act grown, she can deal with this like she grown. By. Her. Self.”

Iesha blink real fast.

I’m feeling real bad for her all of a sudden. “If he is mine, you won’t be doing this alone no more, a’ight? I’ll come over and help as much as I can.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Ma (speaker), Ms. Robinson (speaker), Iesha, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven
Page Number: 21-22
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“You good?”

Hell no. My life got thrown into a blender and I’m left with something I don’t recognize. On top of that, I’m suddenly somebody’s pops and I wish I had my pops.

Nah, man. I can’t freak out. I gotta handle mine, on some G shit. “I ain’t tripping.”

“You know it’s okay to be scared, right?”

“Scared of what? A li’l baby?”

“Of all the stuff that come with having a li’l baby,” Dre says. “First time I held Adreanna, I cried. She was so beautiful, and she was stuck with me for a father.”

I look at my son, and damn, I feel that.

“I decided I was gon’ be the kind of father she deserved,” he says. “I had to man up. That’s what you gotta do, Mav. Man up.”

“Fool, I’m a man already,” I say.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Dre (speaker), Pops, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Adreanna
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“I walked out on him last night, Dre.”

“Who? Your son?”

I nod. “He wouldn’t stop—I didn’t know how to make him stop crying man, and I was tired and—” I shake my head at myself. “I walked out of the house and left him crying.”

“Did you go back?”

I look up at him. “Of course I did.”

“That’s what matters,” Dre says. “Parenting is hard, cuz. You gon’ break sometimes. The most important thing is that you pull yourself together and go back, playboy.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Dre (speaker), King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“You only putting roses in this bed?”

“That’s the plan. Roses need space to grow. Why you ask?”

He got greens, green beans, tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries—all kinds of fruits and vegetables out here. “Seems like a lot of space to give something you can’t eat.

“You might be right,” he admits. “I like to be reminded that beauty can come from much of nothing. To me that’s the whole point of flowers.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Wyatt (speaker)
Related Symbols: Roses
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Pops told me the other day that grief something we all gotta carry. I never understood that till now. Feel like I got a boulder on my back. It weigh down my whole body, and I be wanting to cry out to make the pain go away.

Men ain’t supposed to cry. We supposed to be strong enough to carry our boulders and everybody else’s.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops, Ma, Dre, Keisha, Adreanna
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

“Weak,” P-Nut says, behind a fake cough. The big homies smirk. I’m nothing but a joke to them.

I storm toward the church. I found Dre with bullets in his head. The least Shawn could do is let me handle the dude who killed him.

But nah. I’m just a li’l kid who can’t live up to his pops’s name.

I’m gon’ prove all them fools wrong one day. Believe that.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), P-Nut (speaker), Pops, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Shawn, Ant
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“Everybody in the set already think I’m soft, Shawn.”

“So?” he says. “Forget what them fools think. You gotta live for you and Dre now, you feel me? You can do everything he didn’t get a chance to do.”

I never thought of that.

“Raise your son. Be the best father you can be,” Shawn says. “That’s how you honor Dre. A’ight?”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Shawn (speaker), Ma, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Ant
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:

“Son, one of the biggest lies ever told is that Black men don’t feel emotions. Guess it’s easier to not see us as human when you think we’re heartless. Fact of the matter is, we feel things. Hurt, pain, sadness, all of it. We got a right to show them feelings as much as anybody else.”

Related Characters: Mr. Wyatt (speaker), Maverick Carter, Dre, Shawn
Page Number: 163-64
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The person who killed my cousin got killed.

It’s been a weird three weeks since it happened. ‘Cause Ant was shot at a school function it was all over the news. His parents cried on TV, and I realized he had parents. Like Dre. Some kids at school were really tore up over his death, and I realized he had friends. Like Dre. At the stadium, he got a memorial in the parking lot with flowers and balloons. Like Dre.

Everybody get mourned by somebody, I guess. Even murderers.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops, Dre, Shawn, Ant
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

I’m feeling bold as hell, and things I’ve been scared to say suddenly not so scary. “You left us. Got Ma busting her ass to take care of me and put money on your books. I had to join a gang ‘cause of you. You can’t come at either of us.”

“What I did ain’t got shit to do with the fact you keep knocking girls up.”

“Yeah, a’ight, I made some bad decisions,” I admit. “I’m gon’ be there for my kids. Unlike you.”

He can’t say nothing, like I thought.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Ma, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

“I felt bad for leaving him and not being able to handle it.”

“That don’t mean you disappear, baby,” Ma says. I’m sorry that your momma didn’t support you like she should’ve and that you had to go through so much yourself. But you have responsibilities now. Seven needs you as much as he needs Maverick.”

“Not if I get in that bad space again, he don’t,” Iesha murmurs.

[…]

Ma rub her shoulder. ‘If it’s not, you’re not alone. It takes a village to raise a child. Seven has a big one. That means that you do too.”

Related Characters: Ma (speaker), Iesha (speaker), Maverick Carter, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Ms. Robinson
Page Number: 218-19
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“We need to start calling you Old Man Carter,” Rico says. “I take that back. My grandma get out more than you and she fresher than you.”

“Whatever,” I mumble.

The first bell ring for class. I follow Rico and Junie down the hall as they discuss the dance and their plans. It’s like they speaking a language I ain’t fluent in anymore. The words real familiar, but they done lost all meaning for me.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Rico (speaker), King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Junie
Page Number: 228
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

It kinda peeve me how life set up. Here I am, tryna make money to keep my momma’s lights on. Meanwhile, some rich brat might hit me up tomorrow, offering to spend a couple hundred for an “experience.” He never think what that money mean to somebody like me. Then who gotta watch out for the cops? Not him. I’m the one who gotta glance over my shoulder 24-7.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Pops, Ma
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

“No offense, Mr. Wyatt, but your nephew seem like a nerd. As for Carlos, his momma kept him and Lisa in the house. Of course they didn’t need protection. Anyway, I’m Li’l Don. Everybody expected me to join.”

“Because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?” Mr. Wyatt asks. “However, it can roll away from the tree. It simply need a little push.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Wyatt (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Pops, Carlos Montgomery, Jamal
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

“Word around the school is that you’ve had some life-changing developments this year,” he says.

I wait for the look. I swear, when grown folks know I got two kids, I see myself become trash in their eyes. It’s like they see my babies as trash, too, just ‘cause I made them so young. Hell nah.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Clayton (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Granny
Page Number: 271-72
Explanation and Analysis:

What’s the point of a high school diploma or a GED? Nah, for real. People claim they’ll make my life easier, but all a high school diploma did for Ma was help her get two jobs that don’t pay enough.

Nah, man. I’m done with this school shit. It’s time to put my focus on making money.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Ma, Mr. Clayton
Page Number: 274
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“Do you love Pops?”

“I do,” she says. “I’ll always love Adonis, and I’ll always be there for him. I also have to love myself. All of that ‘ride or die’ stuff, it’s nice until you feel like you’re dying from not living. Adonis made choices that put his life at a standstill. He didn’t have to sell drugs; he chose to. I shouldn’t have to put my life on hold because of his decisions.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Ma (speaker), King, Pops, Moe
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

Lisa stare at me real hard. “You’re selling drugs with King again, aren’t you?”

I sigh. “Man, look—”

“You know what? Don’t answer that,” she says. “Do whatever you want, Maverick. Me and my baby will be all right.”

“There you go, acting like I won’t be around.”

“Because you won’t!” Lisa says. “I make plans, knowing that. My baby needs one of us to think about the future.”

She don’t get it. She really don’t get it.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery (speaker), Pops, Mr. Wyatt, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Shawn
Page Number: 306
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

There’s a lot of things I never wanted to know ‘bout my pops. It come with the territory when your father is Big Don. I’d rather hear that he bought kids’ shoes and fed families at holidays. Not that he got people hooked on crack.

Sometimes one person’s hero is another person’s monster, or in my case, father. Yet it’s hard for me to judge him when I’m plotting to kill somebody else’s father. But see, taking Red out is the best way for Dre to get justice. It ain’t much different from a judge sentencing Red to death row.

I think.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops, Dre, Red, Bus Stop Tony
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:

“Daddy’s here. It’s okay.”

Them few words do me in. I say them to Seven all the time, but I ain’t heard them myself in years, and they everything I ever needed. “Dre should be here,” I blubber.”

“He should be.”

“He deserve better.”

“He did.”

“I wanna do this for him. I got to.”

Pops smile so sad it’s hard to call it that. “There were a lot of things I thought I had to do, too. Reality was, I only had to be there for you and your momma, and I failed at that.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops (speaker), Ma, Dre, Red
Page Number: 319
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27-28 Quotes

But when it comes to the streets, there’s rules.

Nobody will ever write them down, and you’ll never find them in a book. It’s stuff you need in order to survive the moment your momma let you out the house. Kinda like how you gotta breathe even when it’s hard to.

If there was a book, the most important section would be on family, and the first rule would be:

When somebody kills your family, you kill them.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Pops, Ma, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Red
Page Number: 323-24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“I thought of my kids, my momma, and…and you. What it would do to y’all if I got caught or killed.” I close my eyes. Tears slip outta them. “I’m such a fucking coward.”

“No,” Lisa murmurs. “You sound like a man to me.”

I look at her. “How? That fool murdered Dre, Lisa. And what I do? I let him run away. What kinda justice is that?”

“It wouldn’t have been justice if you threw your life away to kill him.”

I almost laugh. “My life ain’t worth much. I just didn’t wanna put my babies through that. I know what it’s like to not have a father around.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery (speaker), Pops, Ma, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Red
Page Number: 329
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

“Looks like you’re right. These canes need to be snipped.”

“Because they won’t help them grow, right?”

“Mmm-hmm. It’s kind like how we have to do with ourselves. Get rid of things that don’t do us any good. If it won’t help the rose grow, you’ve gotta let it go.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Wyatt (speaker), King
Related Symbols: Roses
Page Number: 341
Explanation and Analysis:

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he says. “Like I told you the other day, you’re becoming your own man. You don’t need my permission or approval.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pops take another deep breath. “On some real shit, son? There’s a lot of grown men in the game who don’t wanna be in it. They don’t have the guts to admit it like you do. They too caught up or scared of what people will think. They end up accepting that they stuck.”

Related Characters: Pops (speaker), Maverick Carter, Red
Page Number: 344-45
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Concrete Rose LitChart as a printable PDF.
Concrete Rose PDF

Maverick Carter Quotes in Concrete Rose

The Concrete Rose quotes below are all either spoken by Maverick Carter or refer to Maverick Carter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Masculinity and Fatherhood Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

One of them yell out, “Don’t let them punk you, Li’l Don and Li’l Zeke!”

It don’t matter that my pops been locked up for nine years or that King’s pops been dead almost as long. They still Big Don, the former crown, and Big Zeke, his right-had man. That make me Li’l Don and King Li’l Zeke. Guess we not old enough to go by our own names yet.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), King, Pops, Pops, Ma, Dre, Shawn
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

I study Iesha real hard. She got bags under her eyes she didn’t have before. “Anybody helping you with him?”

Help?” her momma says, like I cussed. “Who supposed to help her? Me?”

“C’mon now, Yolanda,” says Ma. “This is a lot for anyone to handle, let alone a seventeen-year-old.”

“T’uh! She wanna act grown, she can deal with this like she grown. By. Her. Self.”

Iesha blink real fast.

I’m feeling real bad for her all of a sudden. “If he is mine, you won’t be doing this alone no more, a’ight? I’ll come over and help as much as I can.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Ma (speaker), Ms. Robinson (speaker), Iesha, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven
Page Number: 21-22
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“You good?”

Hell no. My life got thrown into a blender and I’m left with something I don’t recognize. On top of that, I’m suddenly somebody’s pops and I wish I had my pops.

Nah, man. I can’t freak out. I gotta handle mine, on some G shit. “I ain’t tripping.”

“You know it’s okay to be scared, right?”

“Scared of what? A li’l baby?”

“Of all the stuff that come with having a li’l baby,” Dre says. “First time I held Adreanna, I cried. She was so beautiful, and she was stuck with me for a father.”

I look at my son, and damn, I feel that.

“I decided I was gon’ be the kind of father she deserved,” he says. “I had to man up. That’s what you gotta do, Mav. Man up.”

“Fool, I’m a man already,” I say.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Dre (speaker), Pops, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Adreanna
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“I walked out on him last night, Dre.”

“Who? Your son?”

I nod. “He wouldn’t stop—I didn’t know how to make him stop crying man, and I was tired and—” I shake my head at myself. “I walked out of the house and left him crying.”

“Did you go back?”

I look up at him. “Of course I did.”

“That’s what matters,” Dre says. “Parenting is hard, cuz. You gon’ break sometimes. The most important thing is that you pull yourself together and go back, playboy.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Dre (speaker), King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“You only putting roses in this bed?”

“That’s the plan. Roses need space to grow. Why you ask?”

He got greens, green beans, tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries—all kinds of fruits and vegetables out here. “Seems like a lot of space to give something you can’t eat.

“You might be right,” he admits. “I like to be reminded that beauty can come from much of nothing. To me that’s the whole point of flowers.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Wyatt (speaker)
Related Symbols: Roses
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Pops told me the other day that grief something we all gotta carry. I never understood that till now. Feel like I got a boulder on my back. It weigh down my whole body, and I be wanting to cry out to make the pain go away.

Men ain’t supposed to cry. We supposed to be strong enough to carry our boulders and everybody else’s.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops, Ma, Dre, Keisha, Adreanna
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

“Weak,” P-Nut says, behind a fake cough. The big homies smirk. I’m nothing but a joke to them.

I storm toward the church. I found Dre with bullets in his head. The least Shawn could do is let me handle the dude who killed him.

But nah. I’m just a li’l kid who can’t live up to his pops’s name.

I’m gon’ prove all them fools wrong one day. Believe that.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), P-Nut (speaker), Pops, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Shawn, Ant
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“Everybody in the set already think I’m soft, Shawn.”

“So?” he says. “Forget what them fools think. You gotta live for you and Dre now, you feel me? You can do everything he didn’t get a chance to do.”

I never thought of that.

“Raise your son. Be the best father you can be,” Shawn says. “That’s how you honor Dre. A’ight?”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Shawn (speaker), Ma, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Ant
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:

“Son, one of the biggest lies ever told is that Black men don’t feel emotions. Guess it’s easier to not see us as human when you think we’re heartless. Fact of the matter is, we feel things. Hurt, pain, sadness, all of it. We got a right to show them feelings as much as anybody else.”

Related Characters: Mr. Wyatt (speaker), Maverick Carter, Dre, Shawn
Page Number: 163-64
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The person who killed my cousin got killed.

It’s been a weird three weeks since it happened. ‘Cause Ant was shot at a school function it was all over the news. His parents cried on TV, and I realized he had parents. Like Dre. Some kids at school were really tore up over his death, and I realized he had friends. Like Dre. At the stadium, he got a memorial in the parking lot with flowers and balloons. Like Dre.

Everybody get mourned by somebody, I guess. Even murderers.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops, Dre, Shawn, Ant
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

I’m feeling bold as hell, and things I’ve been scared to say suddenly not so scary. “You left us. Got Ma busting her ass to take care of me and put money on your books. I had to join a gang ‘cause of you. You can’t come at either of us.”

“What I did ain’t got shit to do with the fact you keep knocking girls up.”

“Yeah, a’ight, I made some bad decisions,” I admit. “I’m gon’ be there for my kids. Unlike you.”

He can’t say nothing, like I thought.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Ma, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

“I felt bad for leaving him and not being able to handle it.”

“That don’t mean you disappear, baby,” Ma says. I’m sorry that your momma didn’t support you like she should’ve and that you had to go through so much yourself. But you have responsibilities now. Seven needs you as much as he needs Maverick.”

“Not if I get in that bad space again, he don’t,” Iesha murmurs.

[…]

Ma rub her shoulder. ‘If it’s not, you’re not alone. It takes a village to raise a child. Seven has a big one. That means that you do too.”

Related Characters: Ma (speaker), Iesha (speaker), Maverick Carter, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Ms. Robinson
Page Number: 218-19
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“We need to start calling you Old Man Carter,” Rico says. “I take that back. My grandma get out more than you and she fresher than you.”

“Whatever,” I mumble.

The first bell ring for class. I follow Rico and Junie down the hall as they discuss the dance and their plans. It’s like they speaking a language I ain’t fluent in anymore. The words real familiar, but they done lost all meaning for me.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Rico (speaker), King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Junie
Page Number: 228
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

It kinda peeve me how life set up. Here I am, tryna make money to keep my momma’s lights on. Meanwhile, some rich brat might hit me up tomorrow, offering to spend a couple hundred for an “experience.” He never think what that money mean to somebody like me. Then who gotta watch out for the cops? Not him. I’m the one who gotta glance over my shoulder 24-7.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Pops, Ma
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

“No offense, Mr. Wyatt, but your nephew seem like a nerd. As for Carlos, his momma kept him and Lisa in the house. Of course they didn’t need protection. Anyway, I’m Li’l Don. Everybody expected me to join.”

“Because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?” Mr. Wyatt asks. “However, it can roll away from the tree. It simply need a little push.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Wyatt (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Pops, Carlos Montgomery, Jamal
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

“Word around the school is that you’ve had some life-changing developments this year,” he says.

I wait for the look. I swear, when grown folks know I got two kids, I see myself become trash in their eyes. It’s like they see my babies as trash, too, just ‘cause I made them so young. Hell nah.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Clayton (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Granny
Page Number: 271-72
Explanation and Analysis:

What’s the point of a high school diploma or a GED? Nah, for real. People claim they’ll make my life easier, but all a high school diploma did for Ma was help her get two jobs that don’t pay enough.

Nah, man. I’m done with this school shit. It’s time to put my focus on making money.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Ma, Mr. Clayton
Page Number: 274
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“Do you love Pops?”

“I do,” she says. “I’ll always love Adonis, and I’ll always be there for him. I also have to love myself. All of that ‘ride or die’ stuff, it’s nice until you feel like you’re dying from not living. Adonis made choices that put his life at a standstill. He didn’t have to sell drugs; he chose to. I shouldn’t have to put my life on hold because of his decisions.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Ma (speaker), King, Pops, Moe
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

Lisa stare at me real hard. “You’re selling drugs with King again, aren’t you?”

I sigh. “Man, look—”

“You know what? Don’t answer that,” she says. “Do whatever you want, Maverick. Me and my baby will be all right.”

“There you go, acting like I won’t be around.”

“Because you won’t!” Lisa says. “I make plans, knowing that. My baby needs one of us to think about the future.”

She don’t get it. She really don’t get it.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery (speaker), Pops, Mr. Wyatt, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Shawn
Page Number: 306
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

There’s a lot of things I never wanted to know ‘bout my pops. It come with the territory when your father is Big Don. I’d rather hear that he bought kids’ shoes and fed families at holidays. Not that he got people hooked on crack.

Sometimes one person’s hero is another person’s monster, or in my case, father. Yet it’s hard for me to judge him when I’m plotting to kill somebody else’s father. But see, taking Red out is the best way for Dre to get justice. It ain’t much different from a judge sentencing Red to death row.

I think.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops, Dre, Red, Bus Stop Tony
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:

“Daddy’s here. It’s okay.”

Them few words do me in. I say them to Seven all the time, but I ain’t heard them myself in years, and they everything I ever needed. “Dre should be here,” I blubber.”

“He should be.”

“He deserve better.”

“He did.”

“I wanna do this for him. I got to.”

Pops smile so sad it’s hard to call it that. “There were a lot of things I thought I had to do, too. Reality was, I only had to be there for you and your momma, and I failed at that.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Pops (speaker), Ma, Dre, Red
Page Number: 319
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27-28 Quotes

But when it comes to the streets, there’s rules.

Nobody will ever write them down, and you’ll never find them in a book. It’s stuff you need in order to survive the moment your momma let you out the house. Kinda like how you gotta breathe even when it’s hard to.

If there was a book, the most important section would be on family, and the first rule would be:

When somebody kills your family, you kill them.

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery, Pops, Ma, Dre, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Red
Page Number: 323-24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“I thought of my kids, my momma, and…and you. What it would do to y’all if I got caught or killed.” I close my eyes. Tears slip outta them. “I’m such a fucking coward.”

“No,” Lisa murmurs. “You sound like a man to me.”

I look at her. “How? That fool murdered Dre, Lisa. And what I do? I let him run away. What kinda justice is that?”

“It wouldn’t have been justice if you threw your life away to kill him.”

I almost laugh. “My life ain’t worth much. I just didn’t wanna put my babies through that. I know what it’s like to not have a father around.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Lisa Montgomery (speaker), Pops, Ma, King Jr./Li’l Man/Seven, Red
Page Number: 329
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

“Looks like you’re right. These canes need to be snipped.”

“Because they won’t help them grow, right?”

“Mmm-hmm. It’s kind like how we have to do with ourselves. Get rid of things that don’t do us any good. If it won’t help the rose grow, you’ve gotta let it go.”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Mr. Wyatt (speaker), King
Related Symbols: Roses
Page Number: 341
Explanation and Analysis:

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he says. “Like I told you the other day, you’re becoming your own man. You don’t need my permission or approval.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pops take another deep breath. “On some real shit, son? There’s a lot of grown men in the game who don’t wanna be in it. They don’t have the guts to admit it like you do. They too caught up or scared of what people will think. They end up accepting that they stuck.”

Related Characters: Pops (speaker), Maverick Carter, Red
Page Number: 344-45
Explanation and Analysis: