The Help Quotes

[Minny and Celia are discussing Celia's husband]

Minny Jackson: Now I ain't messin' around no more. Now Mr. Johnny gonna catch me here and shoot me dead, right here on this no-wax floor. You gots to tell him. Ain't he wondering how the cooking's so good?

Celia Foote: You're right.

[She looks at the fried chicken leg she's eating]

Celia Foote: Maybe we oughta burn the chicken a little.

Minny Jackson: Minny don't burn chicken.

Celia Foote: They don't like me because of what they think I did.

Minny Jackson: They don't like you 'cause they think you white trash.

Minny Jackson: Eat my shit.

Hilly Holbrook: What'd you say?

Minny Jackson: I said eat... my... shit.

Hilly Holbrook: Have you lost your mind?

Minny Jackson: No, ma'am but you is about to. 'Cause you just did.

[first lines]

Aibileen Clark: I was born 1911, Chicksaw County, Piedmont Plantation.

Woman: And did you know as a girl growing up that one day you'd be a maid?

Aibileen Clark: Yes ma'am, I did.

Woman: And you knew that because...

Aibileen Clark: My mama was a maid. My grandmama was a house slave.

Woman: [whispering as she writes down] "house slave..." Did you ever dream of being something else?

Aibileen Clark: [nods yes]

Woman: What does it feel like to raise a white child when your own child's at home being looked after by somebody else?

Constantine Jefferson: What you doin' hiding out here, girl?

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: I just couldn't tell mama I didn't get invited to the dance.

Constantine Jefferson: That's all right. Some things we just got to keep to ourselves.

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: The boys say I'm ugly. Mama was the third runner-up in the Miss South Carolina pageant...

Constantine Jefferson: Now you quit feeling sorry for yourself. Now that's ugly. Ugly is something that grows up from inside you. It's mean and hurtful, like them boys. Now you not one of them, is you?

[Skeeter shakes her head]

Constantine Jefferson: I didn't think so, honey. Every day you're not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you're gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?" You hear me? "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?" All right? As for your mama, she didn't pick her life. It picked her. But you, you're gonna do something big with yours. You wait and see.

Stuart Whitworth: I've never met a woman that says exactly what she's thinking.

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: Well, I got plenty to say.

Hilly Holbrook: [check from Celia Foote] Pay to the order of: Two Slice Hilly, $200.00.

[tears it up]

Johnny Foote: Listen, Celia finally told me about the babies. All of them. But I also know that the minute you started working here, she started getting better. You saved her life.

Minny Jackson: You mean, you knew I'd been working here this whole time?

Johnny Foote: Fried chicken and okra the first night? I mean, you all could have at least put some cornpone on the table.

Minny Jackson: No, I can't let you eat no more cornpone, Mr. Johnny.

Johnny Foote: Well, thanks to you, now I've have to let out every pair of pants I own.

Hilly Holbrook: Maybe I can't send you to jail for what you wrote, but I can send you for being a thief.

Aibileen Clark: I know something about you. Don't you forget that. From what Yule Mae says, there's a lot of time to write letters in jail. Plenty of time to write the truth about you. And the paper is free.

Hilly Holbrook: Nobody will believe what you wrote!

Aibileen Clark: I don't know. I been told I'm a pretty good writer, already sold a lot of books!

[last lines]

Aibileen Clark: In just ten minutes, the only life I knew was done.

Mae Mobley: [calling after her through the window] A-a-a-aibee!

Aibileen Clark: God says we need to love our enemies. It hard to do. But it can start by telling the truth. No one had ever asked me what it feel like to be me. Once I told the truth about that, I felt free. And I got to thinking about all the people I know. And the things I seen and done. My boy Trelaw always said we gonna have a writer in the family one day. I guess it's gonna be me.

Hilly Holbrook: They carry different diseases than we do. That's why I've drafted the Home Health Sanitation Initiative.

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: The what?

Hilly Holbrook: A disease-preventative bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help. It's been endorsed by the White Citizen's Council.

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: Maybe we should just build you a bathroom outside, Hilly.

Celia Foote: There you are! I'm starved. Looks so good!

[sits down with Minny to have lunch]

Minny Jackson: We done been over this, Miss Celia. You're supposed to eat in the dining room, that's how it works. Here, let me take your plate back.

Celia Foote: [assertively, yet with respect, holding her plate] I'm fine right here, Minny.

Minny Jackson: [Johnny's escorted Minny to the house where Celia has an elegant meal on the table] What's this?

Celia Foote: [proudly] I cooked it all by myself.

Johnny Foote: Yes she did. She was up all night.

Celia Foote: I wanted to do something special. I wanted to say thank you.

Minny Jackson: So, I ain't losing my job?

Celia Foote: [shaking her head in surprise] No.

Johnny Foote: You have a job here for the rest of your life. If you want it.

Minny Jackson: [smiles in acceptance] That's a mile high meringue, Miss Celia?

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: What the hell? What are you doing here?

[Hilly throws her cigarette at Skeeter]

Hilly Holbrook: I contacted my lawyer. Hibby Goodman? He is the best libel attorney in the state. Oh, Missy, you are going to jail!

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: You can't prove anything!

Hilly Holbrook: Oh, I 100% know you wrote it, 'cause nobody in this town is as tacky as you!

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: [Pokes Hilly] You don't know anything, Hilly!

Hilly Holbrook: [Shoves Skeeter] Oh, I don't, do I? You tell Abilene the next time she wants to write about my good friend Elizabeth... Hm? Remember her? Had you in her wedding?... Let's just say Abilene should have been a bit smarter before writing about that L-shaped scratch in poor Elizabeth's dining table.

[takes off her sunglasses]

Hilly Holbrook: And that nigger Minny... do I have plans for her.

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: Careful, Hilly. That's chapter 12.

[Hilly gasps]

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: Don't give yourself away now.

Hilly Holbrook: That was not me!

Rachel: Hello, Miss Charlotte.

Charlotte Phelan: Rachel. We were expecting you next week.

Rachel: I decided to come early and surprise mama.

[she opens screen door. Charlotte shuts it back in place]

Charlotte Phelan: I'm entertaining. Why don't you go around back. Wait in the kitchen.

[pause]

Charlotte Phelan: Go on now.

Charlotte Phelan: Rachel, what are you doing?

Rachel: I'm just doing as I was told, Miss Charlotte. Going to the kitchen. But I'm going to see my mama first. Hello, Mama.

Constantine Jefferson: Go on to the kitchen, baby. I'll be there directly.

Gracie Higginbotham: You may put up with this kind of nonsense, but I do not.

Charlotte Phelan: Get out of this house, Rachel.

Gracie Higginbotham: You heard her. Go on, girl.

Constantine Jefferson: Miss Charlotte, let me take her to the kitchen. Come on, baby. Let's go.

Gracie Higginbotham: Charlotte.

Charlotte Phelan: Both of you. Leave. Now.

Rachel: Come on, Mama.

Hilly Holbrook: Minny? Minny, are you in there?

Minny Jackson: Yes, ma'am.

Hilly Holbrook: And just what are you doing?

[Minny flushes the toilet]

Hilly Holbrook: [shouting] Get off my toilet! You are fired, Minny Jackson!

[Minny leaves the house walking in the rain]

Hilly Holbrook: Go on!

Hilly Holbrook: [about the pie] What do you put in here that makes it taste so good?

Minny Jackson: That good vanilla from Mexico and something else real special.

Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan: Constantine didn't do anything wrong. You love Rachel. I know you do.

Charlotte Phelan: [about Grace Higginbotham] She was our president. What was I supposed to do?