- Emma Mae: Look at him! A man who goes on about gang wars and can't even hold his own against a woman!
- Emma Mae: [to the people at the bank they're robbing] Ladies and gentleman, thanks for your cooperation.
- Emma Mae: Big Daddy, I wish you would've changed your mind and gone back home. Well, I guess it's about that time.
- [loads shotgun]
- 'Big Daddy' Johnson: Girl, where did you learn to handle a shotgun like that?
- Emma Mae: My granddaddy.
- Jesse Amos: [on the dance floor] Chay told me today that you were from down South. I always thought - that the grind, was one of them universal things. You know what I mean?
- Emma Mae: It is. But, we usually do it layin' down.
- 'Big Daddy' Johnson: Now, y'all listen to this little lady - and get your hearts together. Talk about takin' chances? What do you think you're doin' every time you pick up a gun and get to so-called gang warring, with your own people, over turf? Somethin' don't none of you own! Cause the white man owns it. That's right. The white man owns every nook and every cranny. Every alley and every freeway. Every city and every Goddamn swamp. The white man owns it. Why? Cause he got off of his ass and took it. Now, y'all want a piece of it? Well, the only way you gonna get is to get up off your asses and take it back!
- Emma Mae: I think he's kinda cute.
- Dara Stansell: Cute? Girl, you got to be jivin'. That nigga is a loser if ever I saw one. Just look at him with his old antique ass still gang warring.
- Melik Stansell: Dara and Ulika are always teasin' me. Callin' me nubby. But, I want you to call them nubby.
- Emma Mae: Nubby? Now why do they say that?
- Melik Stansell: Because they say mine aren't as big as their nipples. I hate them.
- Emma Mae: Melik, what is all this about size? Now, listen to your big cuz. Now, my mother had practically *nothin'* up here. I mean nothin'! She was almost flat as a pancake. And you know what? One day I heard her ask my daddy if he cared.
- Melik Stansell: She did? And what did your daddy say?
- Emma Mae: Now, that's the good part. My daddy looked at her and he said, "Anything over a mouthful is wasted anyway."
- Melik Stansell: And then what did your mother say?
- Emma Mae: She didn't say nothin'. My daddy just looked at her and laughed and said, "Your lucky I don't have a big mouth."
- Daisy Stansell: What do you need? A shampoo and conditioner?
- Maddie: You know how dirty my hair gets cleanin' up them white folks houses.
- Melik Stansell: Oo, Emma! You got some *big* ones.
- Emma Mae: Girl, I thought you were sleepin'. You nearly scared me to death.
- Melik Stansell: Gosh, Emma, your's are as big as Dara and Ulika put together. Even bigger than Mama's.
- Emma Mae: Back home, we got one rule: family got to stick together.
- Jesse Amos: Yeah. I can dig on that too, baby. I wanna be family.
- Maddie: Honey, I got some news for that hussy when I see her today. You just wait, honey. I'm gonna go down there and turn that County Building inside out. Girl, they don't mess with me. Honey, when I walk in the door you can hear a pin drop.
- Jesse Amos: Say, Zeke, ain't anyone ever told you that you can't find no broad, no better, than a country broad? You see, they're not only *dumb*, but, they got twats hot as ca-yenne peppers!
- Chay: Hey, man, get that shit outta my face. It smell like pussy.
- Ezekiel 'Zeke' Johnson: Pussy?
- [sniffs]
- Ezekiel 'Zeke' Johnson: You damn right. It smell like pussy. What's the matter? You don't like no pussy, man?
- Daisy Stansell: Emma Mae's more help than trouble.
- Maddie: Yeah, country girls most of the time are when they first hit the city. But, before long the bright lights being gone to their heads and they get just as nutty, wild, and crazy as the rest of these city slickers. I know what I'm talkin' about, honey.
- Daisy Stansell: I don't think so in Emma Mae's case.
- Maddie: That goes for Emma Mae, Lucy Mae, Susie Mae, I don't give a Mae. Mark my word, Daisy, before long that gal's gonna drop dead Mae and go her way. I know what I'm talkin' about.
- Huari Stansell: Everybody knows the cops are crazy. But, at least, everybody else has enough sense to stay out of there way.
- 'Big Daddy' Johnson: Hey, what's the matter with you youngins nowadays? We got to be able to blow some heads off and we've got to be ready.
- Ezekiel 'Zeke' Johnson: We ready. We ready, Big Daddy.
- 'Big Daddy' Johnson: Ready, my black ass! You sittin' there with a can of beer in one hand and the other partner upstairs with a piece of ass in the other and you got the nerve to tell me that your ready?
- Ezekiel 'Zeke' Johnson: Now look, Big Daddy, be cool. Now look, they don't even know we're in here.
- 'Big Daddy' Johnson: Hey, we're in here. There out there. We don't know what they know and don't know!
- Emma Mae: I don't understand. They always talkin' about how we young people never try to do nothin' but used dope and kill each other up in the street. Then, when we try to do somethin' the way they say its supposed to be done, they mess with us and try to shut us down. Mr. Davies, what is it all about?
- Mr. Davies: I'm going to tell you something, Emma. I respect you. And believe me, I feel sorry for you. You see, those people up there are looking down here and they see one little black country girl organizing a bunch of kids that society, with all their money and their brains, said there was no saving. You scare them. You scare them; because, you embarrass them. Add to that the fact that you're trying to get two cop beaters off and - that's where we are now.
- 'Big Daddy' Johnson: Y'all always jivin' me about my mumblin'. But, see, what you don't know is I mumble to forget. That's right. When I mumble, I forget that I'm *ashamed* to be as old as I am and still walkin' around. Why, if I was anybody at all, I'd be dead! I'm shit and I know it.
- Huari Stansell: What I don't understand is why they're not over here lookin' for her.
- Ulika Stansell: She just got here. How are they gonna know where to find her?
- Huari Stansell: How do the cops find out everything else? Some turkey tells, that's how!
- Ezekiel 'Zeke' Johnson: Hey, chump! You better get the fuck outta here and take your bitches widcha - especially ug-mug here.
- Huari Stansell: It's all your fault, Daisy. You had to bring all that trouble back from 'Ssippi with you.
- Dara Stansell: It's not mother's fault. And Emma's either. It's the pigs!
- Jerimi: Man, you check this dude Zeke out. Talkin' about somebody bein' ugly. Nigga, you look like an armadillo in the face. I ain't never seen you with no females.
- Ezekiel 'Zeke' Johnson: Ain't this a bitch! Hey, you betta check yourself sucka!
- Jerimi: Hey, there you go again. Thinkin' violence. All you you ever think about is fightin'. I ain't never seen no pussy with no boxing gloves on.
- 'Big Daddy' Johnson: Y'all got the nerve to talkin' about, worryin' about, facin' time. Facin' time? Nigger, you face time every day you live and breathe. Why, you're doin' time right now and don't even know it!
- Chay: Where did you learn to handle yourself like that, girl?
- Emma Mae: Los Angeles ain't the only place with fools. We have to learn how to fight down South too.
- Ulika Stansell: Well, you sure learned well. For a minute there, I thought you had gone crazy.
- Jerimi: Funny, I thought I had gone crazy.
- Chay: That's what you got to do some times with a crazy nigger, you know. You got to go crazy your Goddamn self.