Because of Winn-Dixie

by

Kate DiCamillo

India Opal Buloni Character Analysis

Opal is the novel’s 10-year-old protagonist. Opal lives with her father, whom she refers to as “the preacher,” in Naomi, Florida. Since they recently moved to town, Opal has no friends until she encounters a stray dog in the grocery store one night, whom she adopts and names Winn-Dixie. Winn-Dixie begins to help Opal’s loneliness almost immediately. He’s an attentive listener, so Opal tells him everything she wants to say—such as that she feels neglected by the preacher, who spends all his time preaching and thinking about Mama, who left when Opal was three. Opal wants Mama to come back and doesn’t understand that this won’t happen. When she learns that Mama loves storytelling, Opal begins to “collect” stories to tell Mama someday. With Winn-Dixie’s help, Opal also begins making friends: first with the librarian, Miss Franny, and then with Otis the pet shop employee and an old woman named Gloria. Both Otis and Gloria pose dilemmas for Opal, who is somewhat judgmental: she briefly believes Dunlap and Stevie that Gloria is a witch, and she worries a lot about the fact that Otis has been to jail. Gloria, however, helps Opal to understand that even good people do bad things sometimes, and this doesn’t make them entirely horrible. As Opal learns to see people with more compassion and nuance, she gradually begins to come of age. Though she never stops sharing her own stories, she makes a point to listen to those of others—she understands that by listening, she can help people feel respected and worthy. Near the end of the summer, Opal and Gloria throw a party for all of Opal’s new friends. When a thunderstorm strikes, Winn-Dixie goes missing. His absence forces Opal and the preacher to reaffirm their love for each other and voice that Mama isn’t coming back, while Gloria later makes the case that though the party trappings were destroyed in the downpour, they can still focus on their new friends and their joy. Winn-Dixie is ultimately found, and Opal ends the novel with a community of friends and with the understanding that life is both sweet and sad—and having made the choice to not focus her attention exclusively on Mama.

India Opal Buloni Quotes in Because of Winn-Dixie

The Because of Winn-Dixie quotes below are all either spoken by India Opal Buloni or refer to India Opal Buloni. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Storytelling and Listening Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

My daddy is a good preacher and a nice man, but sometimes it’s hard for me to think about him as my daddy, because he spends so much time preaching or thinking about preaching or getting ready to preach. And so, in my mind, I think of him as “the preacher.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“He won’t talk to me about her at all. I want to know more about her. But I’m afraid to ask the preacher; I’m afraid he’ll get mad at me.”

Winn-Dixie looked at me hard, like he was trying to say something.

“What?” I said.

He stared at me.

“You think I should make the preacher tell me about her?”

Winn-Dixie looked at me so hard he sneezed.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 22-23
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“Number ten,” he said with a long sigh, “number ten, is that your mama loved you. She loved you very much.”

“But she left me,” I told him.

“She left us,” said the preacher softly. I could see him pulling his old turtle head back into his stupid turtle shell. “She packed her bags and left us, and she didn’t leave one thing behind.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Mama
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

I went right back to my room and wrote down all ten things that the preacher had told me. I wrote them down just the way he said them to me so that I wouldn’t forget them, and then I read them out loud to Winn-Dixie until I had them memorized. I wanted to know those ten things inside and out. That way, if my mama ever came back, I could recognize her, and I would be able to grab her and hold on to her tight and not let her get away from me again.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 29-30
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

And none of them wanted to be my friend anyway because they probably thought I’d tell on them to the preacher for every little thing they did wrong; and then they would get in trouble with God and their parents. So I told God that I was lonely, even having Winn-Dixie.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Amanda Wilkinson, Dunlap Dewberry, Stevie Dewberry, Sweetie Pie Thomas
Page Number: 38-39
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

She sighed. “I imagine I’m the only one left from those days. I imagine I’m the only one that even recalls that bear. All my friends, everyone I knew when I was young, they are all dead and gone.”

Related Characters: Miss Franny Block (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:

She sighed again. She looked sad and old and wrinkled. It was the same way I felt sometimes, being friendless in a new town and not having a mama to comfort me. I sighed, too.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Miss Franny Block, Mama
Page Number: 49-50
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

All of a sudden, I felt happy. I had a dog. I had a job. I had Miss Franny Block for a friend. And I had my first invitation to a party in Naomi. It didn’t matter that it came from a five-year-old and the party wasn’t until September. I didn’t feel so lonely anymore.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Otis, Miss Franny Block, Mama, Sweetie Pie Thomas
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“You know, my eyes ain’t too good at all. I can’t see nothing but the general shape of things, so I got to rely on my heart. Why don’t you go on and tell me everything about yourself, so as I can see you with my heart.”

Related Characters: Gloria Dump (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie, Dunlap Dewberry, Stevie Dewberry
Page Number: 65-66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

And the whole time I was talking, Gloria Dump was listening. She was nodding her head and smiling and frowning and saying, “Hmmm,” and “Is that right?”

I could feel her listening with all her heart, and it felt good.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Gloria Dump
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

All of a sudden it was hard for me to talk. I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arm around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

I waved at the woman on the porch and she waved back, and I watched Sweetie Pie run off to tell her mama about Otis being a magic man. It made me think about my mama and how I wanted to tell her the story about Otis charming all the animals. I was collecting stories for her.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Otis, Mama, Sweetie Pie Thomas
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“Why are all those bottles on it?”

“To keep the ghosts away,” Gloria said.

“What ghosts?”

“The ghosts of all the things I done wrong.”

I looked at all the bottles on the tree. “You did that many things wrong?” I asked her.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” said Gloria. “More than that.”

“But you’re the nicest person I know,” I told her.

“Doesn’t mean I haven’t done bad things,” she said.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Gloria Dump (speaker), Otis
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 94-95
Explanation and Analysis:

I stayed where I was and studied the tree. I wondered if my mama, wherever she was, had a tree full of bottles; and I wondered if I was a ghost to her, the same way she sometimes seemed like a ghost to me.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Gloria Dump, Mama
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

And I got real good at holding on to Winn-Dixie whenever they came. I held on to him and comforted him and whispered to him and rocked him, just the same way he tried to comfort Miss Franny when she had her fits. Only I held on to Winn-Dixie for another reason, too. I held on to him tight so he wouldn’t run away.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Gloria Dump, Miss Franny Block, Mama
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:

It all made me think about Gloria Dump. I wondered who comforted her when she heard those bottles knocking together, those ghosts chattering about the things she had done wrong. I wanted to comfort Gloria Dump. And I decided that the best way to do that would be to read her a book, read it to her loud enough to keep the ghosts away.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Gloria Dump, Miss Franny Block, Mama
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

“And the army took him, and Littmus went off to war, just like that. Left behind his mother and three sisters. He went off to be a hero. But he soon found out the truth.” Miss Franny closed her eyes and shook her head.

“What truth?” I asked her.

“Why, that war is hell,” Miss Franny said with her eyes still closed. “Pure hell.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Miss Franny Block (speaker), Amanda Wilkinson, Littmus W. Block
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

I ate my Littmus Lozenge slow. It tasted good. It tasted like root beer and strawberry and something else I didn’t have a name for, something that made me feel kind of sad. I looked over at Amanda. She was sucking on her candy and thinking hard.

“Do you like it?” Miss Franny asked me.

“Yes ma’am,” I told her.

“What about you, Amanda? Do you like the Littmus Lozenge?”

“Yes ma’am,” she said. “But it makes me think of things I feel sad about.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Miss Franny Block (speaker), Amanda Wilkinson (speaker), Littmus W. Block
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

I didn’t go to sleep right away. I lay there and thought how life was like a Littmus Lozenge, how the sweet and the sad were all mixed up together and how hard it was to separate them out. It was confusing.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher, Amanda Wilkinson, Carson
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:

I got up out of bed and unwrapped a Littmus Lozenge and sucked on it hard and thought about my mama leaving me. That was a melancholy feeling. And then I thought about Amanda and Carson. And that made me feel melancholy, too. Poor Amanda. And poor Carson. He was the same age as Sweetie Pie. But he would never get to have his sixth birthday party.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Mama, Amanda Wilkinson, Sweetie Pie Thomas, Carson
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 126-27
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I swept the floor real slow that day. I wanted to keep Otis company. I didn’t want him to be lonely. Sometimes, it seemed like everybody in the world was lonely. I thought about my mama.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Otis, Mama
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“There ain’t no way you can hold on to something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.”

Related Characters: Gloria Dump (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

I kept on going over the list in my head. I memorized it the same way I had memorized the list of ten things about my mama. I memorized it so if I didn’t find him, I would have some part of him to hold on to. But at the same time, I thought of something I had never thought of before; and that was that a list of things couldn’t even begin to show somebody the real Winn-Dixie, just like a list of ten things couldn’t ever get me to know my mama.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Mama
Page Number: 163-64
Explanation and Analysis:

“But do you know what? I just realized something, India Opal. When I told you your mama took everything with her, I forgot one thing, one very important thing that she left behind.”

“What?” I asked.

“You,” he said. “Thank God your mama left me you.” And he hugged me tighter.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Mama
Page Number: 166-67
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

“Well,” said Gloria Dump. “We didn’t do nothin’. We just sat here and waited and sang some songs. We all got to be good friends. Now. The punch ain’t nothin’ but water and the egg-salad sandwiches got tore up by the rain. You got to eat them with a spoon if you want egg salad. But we got pickles to eat. And Littmus Lozenges. And we still got a party going on.”

Related Characters: Gloria Dump (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Otis, Miss Franny Block, Amanda Wilkinson, Dunlap Dewberry, Stevie Dewberry
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

“Mama,” I said, just like she was standing right beside me, “I know ten things about you, and that’s not enough, that’s not near enough. But Daddy is going to tell me more; I know he will, now that he knows you’re not coming back. He misses you and I miss you, but my heart doesn’t feel empty anymore. It’s full all the way up. I’ll still think about you, I promise. But probably not as much as I did this summer.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 177-78
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Because of Winn-Dixie LitChart as a printable PDF.
Because of Winn-Dixie PDF

India Opal Buloni Quotes in Because of Winn-Dixie

The Because of Winn-Dixie quotes below are all either spoken by India Opal Buloni or refer to India Opal Buloni. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Storytelling and Listening Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

My daddy is a good preacher and a nice man, but sometimes it’s hard for me to think about him as my daddy, because he spends so much time preaching or thinking about preaching or getting ready to preach. And so, in my mind, I think of him as “the preacher.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“He won’t talk to me about her at all. I want to know more about her. But I’m afraid to ask the preacher; I’m afraid he’ll get mad at me.”

Winn-Dixie looked at me hard, like he was trying to say something.

“What?” I said.

He stared at me.

“You think I should make the preacher tell me about her?”

Winn-Dixie looked at me so hard he sneezed.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 22-23
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“Number ten,” he said with a long sigh, “number ten, is that your mama loved you. She loved you very much.”

“But she left me,” I told him.

“She left us,” said the preacher softly. I could see him pulling his old turtle head back into his stupid turtle shell. “She packed her bags and left us, and she didn’t leave one thing behind.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Mama
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

I went right back to my room and wrote down all ten things that the preacher had told me. I wrote them down just the way he said them to me so that I wouldn’t forget them, and then I read them out loud to Winn-Dixie until I had them memorized. I wanted to know those ten things inside and out. That way, if my mama ever came back, I could recognize her, and I would be able to grab her and hold on to her tight and not let her get away from me again.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 29-30
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

And none of them wanted to be my friend anyway because they probably thought I’d tell on them to the preacher for every little thing they did wrong; and then they would get in trouble with God and their parents. So I told God that I was lonely, even having Winn-Dixie.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Amanda Wilkinson, Dunlap Dewberry, Stevie Dewberry, Sweetie Pie Thomas
Page Number: 38-39
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

She sighed. “I imagine I’m the only one left from those days. I imagine I’m the only one that even recalls that bear. All my friends, everyone I knew when I was young, they are all dead and gone.”

Related Characters: Miss Franny Block (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:

She sighed again. She looked sad and old and wrinkled. It was the same way I felt sometimes, being friendless in a new town and not having a mama to comfort me. I sighed, too.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Miss Franny Block, Mama
Page Number: 49-50
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

All of a sudden, I felt happy. I had a dog. I had a job. I had Miss Franny Block for a friend. And I had my first invitation to a party in Naomi. It didn’t matter that it came from a five-year-old and the party wasn’t until September. I didn’t feel so lonely anymore.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Otis, Miss Franny Block, Mama, Sweetie Pie Thomas
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“You know, my eyes ain’t too good at all. I can’t see nothing but the general shape of things, so I got to rely on my heart. Why don’t you go on and tell me everything about yourself, so as I can see you with my heart.”

Related Characters: Gloria Dump (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie, Dunlap Dewberry, Stevie Dewberry
Page Number: 65-66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

And the whole time I was talking, Gloria Dump was listening. She was nodding her head and smiling and frowning and saying, “Hmmm,” and “Is that right?”

I could feel her listening with all her heart, and it felt good.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Gloria Dump
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

All of a sudden it was hard for me to talk. I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arm around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

I waved at the woman on the porch and she waved back, and I watched Sweetie Pie run off to tell her mama about Otis being a magic man. It made me think about my mama and how I wanted to tell her the story about Otis charming all the animals. I was collecting stories for her.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Otis, Mama, Sweetie Pie Thomas
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“Why are all those bottles on it?”

“To keep the ghosts away,” Gloria said.

“What ghosts?”

“The ghosts of all the things I done wrong.”

I looked at all the bottles on the tree. “You did that many things wrong?” I asked her.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” said Gloria. “More than that.”

“But you’re the nicest person I know,” I told her.

“Doesn’t mean I haven’t done bad things,” she said.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Gloria Dump (speaker), Otis
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 94-95
Explanation and Analysis:

I stayed where I was and studied the tree. I wondered if my mama, wherever she was, had a tree full of bottles; and I wondered if I was a ghost to her, the same way she sometimes seemed like a ghost to me.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Gloria Dump, Mama
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

And I got real good at holding on to Winn-Dixie whenever they came. I held on to him and comforted him and whispered to him and rocked him, just the same way he tried to comfort Miss Franny when she had her fits. Only I held on to Winn-Dixie for another reason, too. I held on to him tight so he wouldn’t run away.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Gloria Dump, Miss Franny Block, Mama
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:

It all made me think about Gloria Dump. I wondered who comforted her when she heard those bottles knocking together, those ghosts chattering about the things she had done wrong. I wanted to comfort Gloria Dump. And I decided that the best way to do that would be to read her a book, read it to her loud enough to keep the ghosts away.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Gloria Dump, Miss Franny Block, Mama
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

“And the army took him, and Littmus went off to war, just like that. Left behind his mother and three sisters. He went off to be a hero. But he soon found out the truth.” Miss Franny closed her eyes and shook her head.

“What truth?” I asked her.

“Why, that war is hell,” Miss Franny said with her eyes still closed. “Pure hell.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Miss Franny Block (speaker), Amanda Wilkinson, Littmus W. Block
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

I ate my Littmus Lozenge slow. It tasted good. It tasted like root beer and strawberry and something else I didn’t have a name for, something that made me feel kind of sad. I looked over at Amanda. She was sucking on her candy and thinking hard.

“Do you like it?” Miss Franny asked me.

“Yes ma’am,” I told her.

“What about you, Amanda? Do you like the Littmus Lozenge?”

“Yes ma’am,” she said. “But it makes me think of things I feel sad about.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Miss Franny Block (speaker), Amanda Wilkinson (speaker), Littmus W. Block
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

I didn’t go to sleep right away. I lay there and thought how life was like a Littmus Lozenge, how the sweet and the sad were all mixed up together and how hard it was to separate them out. It was confusing.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher, Amanda Wilkinson, Carson
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:

I got up out of bed and unwrapped a Littmus Lozenge and sucked on it hard and thought about my mama leaving me. That was a melancholy feeling. And then I thought about Amanda and Carson. And that made me feel melancholy, too. Poor Amanda. And poor Carson. He was the same age as Sweetie Pie. But he would never get to have his sixth birthday party.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Mama, Amanda Wilkinson, Sweetie Pie Thomas, Carson
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 126-27
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I swept the floor real slow that day. I wanted to keep Otis company. I didn’t want him to be lonely. Sometimes, it seemed like everybody in the world was lonely. I thought about my mama.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Otis, Mama
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“There ain’t no way you can hold on to something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.”

Related Characters: Gloria Dump (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

I kept on going over the list in my head. I memorized it the same way I had memorized the list of ten things about my mama. I memorized it so if I didn’t find him, I would have some part of him to hold on to. But at the same time, I thought of something I had never thought of before; and that was that a list of things couldn’t even begin to show somebody the real Winn-Dixie, just like a list of ten things couldn’t ever get me to know my mama.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Mama
Page Number: 163-64
Explanation and Analysis:

“But do you know what? I just realized something, India Opal. When I told you your mama took everything with her, I forgot one thing, one very important thing that she left behind.”

“What?” I asked.

“You,” he said. “Thank God your mama left me you.” And he hugged me tighter.

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher (speaker), Winn-Dixie, Mama
Page Number: 166-67
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

“Well,” said Gloria Dump. “We didn’t do nothin’. We just sat here and waited and sang some songs. We all got to be good friends. Now. The punch ain’t nothin’ but water and the egg-salad sandwiches got tore up by the rain. You got to eat them with a spoon if you want egg salad. But we got pickles to eat. And Littmus Lozenges. And we still got a party going on.”

Related Characters: Gloria Dump (speaker), India Opal Buloni, Winn-Dixie, Daddy/The Preacher, Otis, Miss Franny Block, Amanda Wilkinson, Dunlap Dewberry, Stevie Dewberry
Related Symbols: Littmus Lozenges
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

“Mama,” I said, just like she was standing right beside me, “I know ten things about you, and that’s not enough, that’s not near enough. But Daddy is going to tell me more; I know he will, now that he knows you’re not coming back. He misses you and I miss you, but my heart doesn’t feel empty anymore. It’s full all the way up. I’ll still think about you, I promise. But probably not as much as I did this summer.”

Related Characters: India Opal Buloni (speaker), Daddy/The Preacher, Mama
Related Symbols: The Mistake Tree
Page Number: 177-78
Explanation and Analysis: