12 Years a Slave

& Clemens: If you want to survive, do and say as little as possible. Tell no one who you really are and tell no one you can read and write. Unless you want to be a dead nigger.

& Clemens: All’s I know, if we get where we’re traveling... we’ll wish we’d died trying.

& Clemens: Survival is not about certain death, it is about keeping your head down.

& Solomon Northup: “Tell no one who I am.” That’s the way to survive? Well, I don’t want to survive. I want to live.

& Mistress Ford: Something to eat and some rest; your children will soon enough be forgotten.

& Tibeats: For all of you raw niggers that don’t know... my name is John Tibeats, William Ford’s chief carpenter. You will refer to me as “Master.” Mr. Chapin is the overseer on this plantation. You, too, will refer to him as “Master.” So, clap your hands... Like this... Come on. Come on, now. Clap your hands.
    Nigger run
    Nigger flew
    Nigger tore his shirt in two
    Run, run
    The pattyroller will get you
    Run, nigger, run......
    Run, nigger, run

---

& Tibeats: “Materially diminished”?
    Solomon Northup: ...if we use the waterway.
    Tibeats: Are you an engineer, or a nigger? You are or an engineer, or a nigger.

& Ford: Whatever the circumstances, you are an exceptional nigger, Platt. But I fear no good will come of it.

& Phebe: Got no cause to worry for my sensibilities. I ain’t felt the end of a lash in more years I can recall. I ain’t worked a field, neither. Where once I served... now, I have others serving me. The cost to my current existence... be Master Shaw broadcasting his affections... and me enjoying the pantomime of his fidelity. If that what keep me from cotton picking niggers, that what it be. A small and reasonable price to be paid, for sure.

& Phebe: Take comfort, Patsey. The good Lord will manage Epps. In His own time, the good Lord will manage them all. The curse of the pharaohs were a poor example... of what wait for the plantation class.

& Armsby: Before you say I’m just a sorry drunkard... let me state my case. As reliable employment as overseeing is, it is no easy chore on the spirit. I say, no man of conscious... can take the lash to another human day in and day out... without shredding at his own self. Takes him to a place... where he either makes excuses within his mind to be unaffected... or he finds some way to trample his guilty sensations. So, I trampled. With frequency.

& Epps: Were he not free and white, Platt. Were he not free and white.

& Bass: What right have you to your niggers, when you come down to the point?
    Epps: What right? I bought them. I paid for them.
    Bass: Of course you did, and the law says you have the right to hold a nigger. But begging the law’s pardon, it lies. Suppose they pass a law taking away your liberty, making you a slave. Suppose.
    Epps: That ain’t a supposable case.
    Bass: Laws change, Epps. Universal truths are constant. It is a fact, a plain and simple fact... that what is true and right is true and right for all. White and black alike.
    Epps: You comparing me to a nigger, Bass?!
    Bass: I’m only asking, in the eyes of God, what is the difference?
    Epps: You might as well ask what the difference is between a white man and a baboon. I seen one of them critters in Orleans. Know just as much as any nigger I got.
    Bass: Listen, Epps. These niggers are human beings. If they are allowed to climb no higher than brute animals... you and men like you will have to answer for it. There is an ill, Mr. Epps... a fearful ill resting upon this nation. And there will be a day of reckoning yet.

& Solomon Northup: I’ll apologize... for my appearance. But I have had... a difficult time... these past several years.

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+ quotes on the IMDb

Σ Good story. Weak movie.