Extended Reading

The Secret Life of Bees quotes

  • Lily Owens: [to T. Ray] My whole life has been nothing but a hole, where my mother should have been. It always left me aching, but I never thought about what it did to you.

  • Lily Owens: If your favorite color is blue, why did you paint the house pink?

    August Boatwright: [chuckles] That was May's doing. When we went to the paint shop, she latched on to a color called, "Caribbean Pink." She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish Flamenco. I personally thought it was the tackiest color I had ever seen, but I figured if it could lift May's heart, it was good enough to live in.

    Lily Owens: That was awfully nice of you.

    August Boatwright: Well, I don't know. Some things in life, like the color of a house, don't really matter. But lifting someone's heart? Now, that matters.