[Elvadine was falsely accused of interrupting the teacher]
Elvadine: Alright, I'll tell you. I was sayin' "Elvadine, what's YOU gots to write about? Been in the sixth grade your whole good-for-nuthin' life. Ain't GOT no daddy. Never goes anywhere but where your feets take you. Onliest money that ever belong to you in the whole world was twenty dollars you gots yourself in a birthday card, from your uncle last year." But it really wasn't for my birthday. Really, it was for layin' over his lap and letting him spank me with my underpants down. And now here you come along, shovin' me in the back of the room, where I can't even see too good, which means I'm prob'ly not gonna graduate this summer neither, Just 'cuz you read how some white man say Life be like a bowlful o' cherries, I've gotsta come up with some big hit sayin' Well, fine. I'll just write down how happy I'm gonna be to get 20 more dollars on my birthday. Never mind what he's got planned for me THIS year. And I'm gonna write, how maybe the new man my momma been seein' might stop drinkin', and treat me nice, and maybe he's gonna adopt me, and take us off the welfare. And at the end, I'm gonna be sure put:
[sarcastically]
Elvadine: 'Life Sure is a bowl full of Cherries.'
[back to normal]
Elvadine: But to tell you the truth, Miss Strapford, I think you, and that book, and this whole class, be a bowl full of shit!