Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)

Laura Dern: Narrator

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Narrator : "People pay for what they do, and still more for what they allow themselves to become. And they pay for it simply; by the lives they lead." James Baldwin.

• Narrator : The day I was born started off bad and only got worse. I guess I was lucky I got born at all.

• [last lines] 

  Narrator : Who had mama been? What had she wanted to be or do before I was born? Once I was born her hopes turned, and I climbed up her life like a flower reaching for the sun. Her life had folded into mine. Who would I be when I was 15, 20, 30? Would I be as strong as she had been? As hungry for love? As desperate, determined and ashamed? I wasn't old but I was already who I was gonna be. Someone like her, like my mama, a Boatwright, a bastard, a bastard out of Carolina.

  Ruth Anne 'Bone' Boatwright : I love you, mama.

• Narrator : I lived in a world of shame. I hid my bruises as if they were evidence of crimes I had committed. I didn't tell Mama. I couldn't tell Mama.

• Anney Boatwright : Oh, Jesus, Glen. You don't know your own strength.

  Glen Waddell : I guess I don't. But Bone knows I'd never mean to hurt her. Bone knows I love her. Hell, Anney, I love all of you. You know that.

  Narrator : No, he never meant to hurt me. Not really, I told myself. But more and more those hands seemed to move before he could think.