Freedom Writers

"[after Marcus calls her "his hero"] Oh no. No, no, young man, no, I am not a hero. No, I did what I had to do because... it was the right thing to do. That is all. Now we are all ordinary people, but even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room, ja? I have read your letters, and your teacher has been telling me many things about your experiences. You are the heroes. You are heroes every day. Your faces are engraved in my heart."

"In every war, there is an enemy. I watched my mother being hlaf-beaten to death, and watched as bloodand tears streamed down her face. I felt useless and scared, and furious at the same time. I can still feel the sting of the belt on my back and my legs. One time he couldnt pay the rent. That night he stopped us on the street and pointed to the concrete. He said, "pick a spot."

"[repeated line] All right, guys and gals, listen up!"

"So when youre dead, youll get respect, that what you think? [murmurs of "yeah" from the class] You know whats gonna happen when you die? Youre gonna rot in the ground, and people are going to go on living, and theyre going to forget all about you. And when you rot, do you think its gonna matter whether you were an "original gangster"? Youre dead. And nobody, nobody is gonna want to remember you, because all you left in the world is this. [holds up Titos drawing]"

"Nobody cares what I do. Why should I bother coming to school?"

"Miss Gruwell, he just took my damn bag!"

"At sixteen, Ive seen more bodies than a mortician. Every time I step out my door I face the risk of being shot. To the rest of the world its just another dead body on a street corner. They dont know that he was my friend."

"She cant even look at me because I look like my dad."

"If you look in my eyes, youll see a lonely girl. If you like at my smile, youll see nothing wrong. If you pull up my shirt, youll see the bruises. What did I do to make him so mad?"

"Man, what am I DOIN in here, man? This ol ghetto ass class got people in here lookin like a bad rerun of cops!"

"During the war in Cambodia, the camps stripped away my fathers dignity. He sometimes tries to hurt me and my mom. I feel like I have to protect my family."

"My PO doesnt understand that schools are like the city and the city is just like a prison."