Paul LaMalfa
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
	Selections from each chapter which are most effective, and 
beautifully written...


Chapter 1:
	"In later years I was to confront the stereotyped picture of 
gay song-singing cotton pickers with such inordinate rage that I was 
told even by fellow Blacks that my paranoia was embarassing."(7)


Chapter 2:
	"The tragedy of lameness seems so unfair to children that they 
are embarassed in its presence."(8)


Chapter 3:
	"The light would come in softly (we faced north), easing itself 
over the shelves of mackerel, salmon, tobacco, thread."(13)
	"...it looked like an unopened present from a stranger."(13)


Chapter 4:
	"...surrounded by the bitter aroma of its fruit and lulled by 
the drone of the flies that fed on the berries."(16)


Chapter 5:
	"...twangling all the time in their sharp voices like cigar-box 
guitars."(22)
	"I suppose my lifelong paranoia was born in these cold, 
molasses-slow, minutes."(24)


Chapter 6:
	"Laughter so easily turns to hysteria for imaginative children."(37)


Chapter 7:	
	"In church when she was called upon to sing, she seemed to pull 
out plugs from behind her jaws and the huge, almost rough sound would 
pour over the listeners and throb in the air."(38)


Chapter 8:
	"I printed M-O-T-H-E-R...and tears would fall like warm milk."(43)


Chapter 9:
	"...seeing him in flesh shredded my inventions like a hard 
yank on a paper chain."(44)


Chapter 10:
	"She was like a pretty kite that floated just above my head."(54)


Chapter 11:
	"There was an army of adults, whose motives and movements I 
just couldn't understand and who made no effort to understand mine."(62)


Chapter 12:
	



Chapter 13:
	"I discovered that to acheive perfect personal silence all I had 
to do was to attach myself leech like to a sound."(73)


Chapter 14:
	"So I was not so much forgiven as understood."(77)


Chapter 15:
	"I never thought I'd live to hear cursing under this roof, what 
I try to keep dedicated to the glorification of God."(86)


Chapter 16:
	"For a week I looked into Mrs. Cullinan's face as she called 
me Mary."(92)


Chapter 17:
	"It was extraordinary good fortune to be able to save up one's 
money and go see one's mother whenever one wanted to."(100)


Chapter 18:
	"I had never saw a preacher jump into the muscle of his sermon 
so quickly."(106)


Chapter 19:
	"It wouldn't do for a black man to be stranded on a country road 
a tnight when Joe Louise had proved that we were the strongest people 
in the world."(114)


Chapter 20:
	"...each time I saw Tommy I melted in delicious giggles and was
unable to form a coherent sentence."(123)


Chapter 21:
	"If I had disliked Joyce while she had Bailey in her grasp, I 
hated her for leaving."(126)


Chapter 22:
	"It seemed as if he had a fire going inside his head."(138)


Chapter 23:
	"..slavery cured us of that weakness."(156)


Chapter 24:
	"...that was my cue to reveal our confrontation with the 
peckerwood dentist and Momma's incredible powers."(163)


Chapter 25:
	"...she had given me her secret word which called forth a 
djinn who was to serve me all my life: books."(170)


Chapter 26:
	"He was after all, a politician's politician,and he knew what 
he was doing."(177)


Chapter 27:
	"Pride and Prejudice stalked inh tandem the beautiful hills."(180)


Chapter 28:
	"I often wondered if she knew she was the only teacher I 
remembered."(184)


Chapter 29:
	"It wasn't possible for me to regard them as criminals, or 
be anything but proud of their acheivements."(190)


Chapter 30:
	"I, too, pushed to the window to see, but then remembered the 
rythmic snores, and coolly walked away."(204)


Chapter 31:
	"I went to bed and slept as though my death wish had come 
true."(212)


Chapter 32:
	"my thinking process had so changed that I hardly recognized 
myself."(216)


Chapter 33:
	"I had known all along the inevitable outcome and that I dared 
not poke into his knapsack of misery."(221)


Chapter 34:
	"The bright hours when the young rebelled against the descending 
sun had to give way to twenty-four hour periods called "days"..."(231)


Chapter 35:
	"I decide i would understand it all bvetter by-and-bye."(241)


Chapter 36:
	"Under the tent of blanket...the baby slept touching my side."(246)