The Hate U Give

by

Angie Thomas

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Chapter 1 Quotes

As long as I play it cool and keep to myself, I should be fine. The ironic thing is though, at Williamson I don't have to “play it cool” — I’m cool by default because I'm one of the only black kids there. I have to earn coolness in Garden Heights, and that's more difficult than buying retro Jordans on release day.

Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker)
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

Garden Heights has been a battlefield for the past two months over some stupid territory wars. I was born a “queen” ‘cause Daddy used to be a King Lord. But when he left the game, my street royalty status ended. But even if I’d grown up in it, I wouldn't understand fighting over streets nobody owns.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Maverick Carter
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

Listen! The Hate U-the letter U-Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. T-H-U-G L-I-F-E. Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out. Get it?

Related Characters: Khalil Harris (speaker), Starr Carter
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2  Quotes

The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me. … “Starr-Starr, you do whatever they tell you to do," he said. "Keep your hands visible. Don't make any sudden moves. Only speak when they speak to you."

I knew it must've been serious. Daddy has the biggest mouth of anybody I know, and if he said to be quiet, I needed to be quiet.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Maverick Carter (speaker)
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

But I swear I wanna cuss Khalil out. How he could sell the very stuff that took his momma from him? Did he realize that he was taking somebody else's momma from them? Did he realize that if he does become a hashtag, some people will only see him as a drug dealer?

He was so much more than that.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Khalil Harris, Brenda Harris
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Williamson Starr doesn't use slang—if a rapper would say it, she doesn't say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her “hood.” Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she's the “angry black girl.” Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, side-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is nonconfrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn't give anyone a reason to call her ghetto.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker)
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:

Hailey texted me immediately after, freaking out. I thought it was because she couldn't believe someone would do that to a kid. No. She couldn't believe I would reblog such an awful picture.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Hailey Grant
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

My voice is changing already. It always happens around “other” people, whether I'm at Williamson or not. I don't talk like me or sound like me. I choose every word carefully and make sure I pronounce them well. I can never, ever let anyone think I'm ghetto.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Detective Gomez, Detective Wilkes
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Hustle! Pretend the ball is some fried chicken. Bet you'll stay on it then.”

Related Characters: Hailey Grant (speaker), Starr Carter
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:

The drug dealer. That's how they see him. It doesn't matter that he's suspected of doing it. “Drug dealer” is louder than “suspected” ever will be.

If it's revealed that I was in the car, what will that make me? The thug ghetto girl with the drug dealer? What will my teachers think about me? My friends? The whole fucking world, possibly?

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Khalil Harris, Hailey Grant, Maya Yang
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“Drugs come from somewhere, and they're destroying our community," he says. “You got folks like Brenda, who think they need them to survive, and then you got the Khalils who think they need to sell them to survive. The Brendas can't get jobs unless they're clean, and they can't pay for rehab unless they got jobs. When the Khalils get arrested for selling drugs, they either spend most of their life in prison, another billion-dollar industry, or they have a hard time getting a real job and probably start selling drugs again. That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s ‘Thug Life.’”

Related Characters: Maverick Carter (speaker), Starr Carter , Khalil Harris, Brenda Harris
Page Number: 170
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

[Tupac] explains Thug Life like Khalil said he did. The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. ‘Pac spells out “Fucks” because that kid is looking dead in his face. When Khalil told me what it meant I kinda understood it. I really understand it now.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Khalil Harris
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

“That's the so-called gun,” Ms. Ofrah explains. “Officer Cruise claims he saw it in the car door, and he assumed Khalil was reaching for it. The handle was thick enough, black enough, for him to assume it was a gun.”

“And Khalil was black enough,” Daddy adds.

A hairbrush. Khalil died over a fucking hairbrush.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Maverick Carter (speaker), April Ofrah (speaker), Khalil Harris, One-Fifteen / Officer Brian Cruise
Related Symbols: Khalil’s Hairbrush
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:

“I've tried to forget it, but I remember everything. The shots, the look on Natasha's face. They never caught the person who did it. I guess it didn't matter enough. But it did matter. She mattered.” I look at Ms. Ofrah, but I can barely see her for all the tears. “And I want everyone to know that Khalil mattered too.”

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Khalil Harris, Natasha, April Ofrah
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Funny. Slave masters thought they were making a difference in black people's lives too. Saving them from their wild African ways. Same shit, different century. I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), One-Fifteen / Officer Brian Cruise, One-Fifteen’s Father
Page Number: 245-246
Explanation and Analysis:

That's the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Hailey Grant, Maya Yang
Page Number: 252
Explanation and Analysis:

“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. If you do, you shouldn't be a cop.”

Related Characters: Uncle Carlos (speaker), Starr Carter , Khalil Harris, One-Fifteen / Officer Brian Cruise
Related Symbols: Khalil’s Hairbrush
Page Number: 256
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Ms. Ofrah says this interview is the way I fight. When you fight, you put yourself out there, not caring who you hurt or if you'll get hurt.

So I throw one more blow, right at One-Fifteen.

“I’d ask him if he wished he shot me too.”

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), One-Fifteen / Officer Brian Cruise, April Ofrah, Diane Carey
Page Number: 290
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Being two different people is so exhausting. I've taught myself to speak with two different voices and only say certain things around certain people. I've mastered it. As much as I say I don't have to choose which Starr I am with Chris, maybe without realizing it, I have to an extent. Part of me feels like I can't exist around people like him.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Chris
Page Number: 301
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“Brave doesn't mean you're not scared, Starr," she says. "It means you go on even though you're scared. And you're doing that."

Related Characters: Lisa Carter (speaker), Starr Carter
Page Number: 331
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Hailey hands me two pictures. One is Khalil's thugshot, as Daddy calls it. One of the pictures they've shown on the news. Hailey printed it off the internet. Khalil wears a smirk, gripping a handful of money and throwing up a sideways peace sign.

The other picture, he's twelve. I know because I'm twelve in it too. It's my birthday party at this laser tag place downtown. Khalil's on one side of me, shoveling strawberry cake into his mouth, and Hailey's on my other side, grinning for the camera along with me.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Khalil Harris, Hailey Grant
Page Number: 339
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

Chris and Maya walk through the gate, and my stomach gets all jittery. I should be used to my two worlds colliding, but I never know which Starr I should be. I can use some slang, but not too much slang, some attitude, but not too much attitude, so I'm not a “sassy black girl.” I have to watch what I say and how I say it, but I can't sound “white.”

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), Chris, Maya Yang
Page Number: 357
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“Anyway, Chris,” Seven says, “DeVante's got a point. What makes his name or our names any less normal than yours? Who or what defines 'normal' to you? If my pops were here, he'd say you've fallen into the trap of the white standard.”

Related Characters: Seven (speaker), Chris, DeVante
Page Number: 401
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

The bullhorn is as heavy as a gun. Ironic since Ms. Ofrah said to use my weapon.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker), April Ofrah
Page Number: 411
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

He said Thug Life stood for “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody.” We did all that stuff last night because we were pissed, and it fucked all of us. Now we have to somehow un-fuck everybody.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker)
Page Number: 432
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Starr Carter (speaker)
Page Number: 443
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.