- Sister: [after Delores and Sparkle discover her drug addiction] Can't you see? Sister can't fly on only one wing.....
- Delores: Oh, Mom, you don't have to iron our clothes. We're old enough to iron for ourselves. You iron enough for them people you work for. You ain't our maid.
- Effie: Well, I enjoy ironing clothes for those I love.
- Delores: I suppose you love them crackers you work for out on Long Island too.
- Effie: You better hush your mouth. Go get your homework before I give you this iron in a place you won't forget.
- Effie: [Effie comes in and hears a hallway door close] Delores? Is that you?
- Delores: Yeah, Mama.
- [coming in the front room with a suitcase]
- Effie: Where you going?
- Delores: I'm leaving, Mama.
- Effie: You're leaving for where?
- Delores: I'm leaving and I'm going away.
- Effie: What do you mean?
- Delores: I mean... I can't live like this anymore, Mama. I gotta find another way.
- Effie: Well, whatever troubles you got here
- [crossing to the living room and taking off her coat]
- Effie: are going right with you and that suitcase.
- [she sits on the couch]
- Delores: You don't understand, Mama.
- [sets down her suitcase]
- Delores: Like, there's education like there never was before. Mama, we don't have to slaves to the white establishment anymore.
- [Effie gets up and starts straightening up the room]
- Delores: We don't have to live off what the white man throws our way. Thanking him for his chicken-shit pay and chicken-shit jobs. We don't have to run around shining his shoes and driving his cars and cleaning his floors and being his ma - ...
- Effie: [facing Delores] Go on, now, say it. Being their maid. Hmm?
- Delores: Yeah, Mama. Being their maid.
- [near tears]
- Delores: Mama, I seen you, ever since I was a little kid, getting up in the middle of the night to take the subway to ride for two hours to go to their house, to do their cooking and to do their ironing and do their cleaning and wash the shit out of their toilet. And for what, Mama? For WHAT?
- [Delores picks up her suitcase and heads for the door]
- Delores: Bye.
- Sparkle: What do you want?
- Stix: Looking for a girl singer.
- Sparkle: Didn't you know? This family's fresh out.
- Stix: Sparkle...
- Sparkle: When'd you get back?
- Stix: A few days ago, my grams been real sick...
- Sparkle: A few days ago. Must've been out when you called.
- Stix: Sparkle... Look, I know how you feel.
- Sparkle: I know you do. You know, it's funny. One brain in this room thinking for two people. Since when did you know how anybody feels? About anything except yourself, Mr. Stix Warren?
- Stix: Look, Sparkle, we got a lot to talk about. But unless you talk about it, you know, just give me a chance.
- Sparkle: Give you a chance? Wanna know something funny? When you first left, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to live without you. Yeah, I used to sit in this room and wondered if I would ever get through another second. Can you imagine a person so unhappy? To not know if they'd live through another second? I got through the second, Stix. Minutes, days, months, weeks. I'm doing fine without you. Just fine.
- Stix: Sparkle, no matter what you think of me, I came back because I want you to sing. Why you think I been so busy since I been back? Got me a job at the record company, lined up all my old contacts...
- Sparkle: You know, you were always so good at business, Stix. Business! BUSINESS!
- Stix: And it's no truer than it is now. I want you to sing, Sparkle.
- Sparkle: What have I got to sing about? Stix, what have I got to sing about?
- Stix: I loved Sister too. But what happened to Sister happened to Sister, not to you. You got your whole life. I want you to sing. Don't bury yourself with your sister.
- Sparkle: Get out of here. Get out! Nobody ever understood Sister except me! Don't you ever, ever, use her name again! Get out of here! Get out!
- Sister: Theatrical makeup is terrible for my face, Momma.
- Effie: [Effie sees the bruises on Sister's face] Sister.
- [Effie turns Sister's face with her hands]
- Effie: Baby. He's just going to drag you... to the gutter...
- Sister: The...
- Effie: ...with him.
- Sister: ...gutter?
- Effie: Um-hum.
- Sister: How can you say that? He's as big time as you can get.
- Effie: I've lived in Harlem all my life. I do know a rat when I see one.
- Sister: You don't understand, Momma, you don't understand.
- Effie: Well... I've said my piece. I'm going home.
- Mrs. Waters: I think you'd better keep your eye on that oldest gal of yours, because she's bustin' at the seams.
- Comic M-C: Confidentially, folks they remind me of the Cookie Sisters. You know about the Cookie Sisters, don't you? Lorna Doone and Nothin' Doone.
- Comic M-C: I heard she told a sailor he had a small organ. The sailor said, "I didn't know I had to play in a cathedral!"
- Stix: Well, the reason why I'm late is because - because I was havin' this here dream and I didn't want to wake myself.
- Sister: Ain't nothin' wrong with messin', anyway. Just make sure whoever you're messin' with stops down to the drugstore first and takes care of some business. You hear me? Don't come around here with no big belly, cryin', talkin' about you didn't know what you was supposed to do.
- Stix: Did you see it when Sister came downstage and give them her stuff? They likely peed in their pants.
- Sister, Sparkle, Delores: [singing] And now you jump, We're gonna shake a little funk, You're doing fine, And now you're right on time, Have a ball, I hope my mama don't call, Know the rules, We're gonna keep it in the groove, Baby, you're all for me, Cause your moving just sets me free, I love the way you party hard, Don't want nothing to tear us apart, Tell you now, I ain't too proud too beg, Hope my partner loves to shake a leg...
- Sister, Sparkle, Delores: [singing] Living in a world of ghetto life
- Sister: Everyone seems so uptight, But, nothing's wrong
- Sparkle, Delores: Nothing's wrong
- Sister: And it's alright
- Sparkle, Delores: It's alright
- Sister: With my man
- Sparkle, Delores: My man
- Sister: I like the ways we have our fun, His loving ways send me on and on, With my man
- Sister, Sparkle, Delores: People out there can understand, I'm giving him something he can feel...
- Stix: [singing] If you look into your heart, With a positive mind, Take self-inventory of your woman and your glory, Put the bad things behind, Everybody's got a story, About the love and the good things, But for the spices of your life, You've got to pay the price, If you know what I mean...
- Stix: Don't you think Stix can take care of himself? Don't you know they messin' with a boy from Harlem?
- Moe Gerber: You want some soup?
- Stix: No, thanks.
- Moe Gerber: You ever had matzo ball soup?
- Stix: No, I don't think I have.
- Moe Gerber: I knew you never had it; because, if you've ever had it, you could never say no. Hymie, another bowl of soup.