Demon Copperhead

by

Barbara Kingsolver

Dori is Demon’s girlfriend. They meet when Dori comes into the feed store where Demon works during his sophomore year of high school. Demon is almost instantly in love. The two begin dating, and Demon is surprised to learn that Dori is a heavy user of opioids, which are prescribed to her father Vester, who is dying of cancer. While the novel depicts the love between Demon and Dori as genuine, they are ultimately destructive influences on each other, and they experience some of the darkest moments of addiction together. Ultimately, Dori dies of an overdose, becoming another casualty of the opioid epidemic and another shattering loss that Demon must learn to cope with.

Dori Quotes in Demon Copperhead

The Demon Copperhead quotes below are all either spoken by Dori or refer to Dori. 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:
Exploitation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 10 Quotes

A ten-year-old getting high on pills. Foolish children. This is what we’re meant to say: Look at their choices, leading to a life of ruin. But lives are getting lived right now, this hour, down in the dirty cracks between the toothbrushued nighty-nights and the full grocery carts, where those words don’t pertain. Children, choices. Ruin, that was the labor and materials we were given to work with. An older boy that never knew safety himself, trying to make us feel safe. We had the moon in the window to smile on us for a minute and tell us the world was ours. Because all the adults had gone off somewhere and left everything in our hands.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Demon’s Mom , Fast Forward, Dori, Tommy Waddell, Mr. Crickson, Swap-Out
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Miss Barks […] stuck with a different theory. I needed to be more pushy with them. Did she give up on her dreams? No, she worked hard for what she wanted. Did I expect anybody to look out for Damon if he wouldn’t look out for himself? Life is what you make it! Here’s where Miss Barks didn’t grow up: foster care. She had no clue how people can be living right on the edge of what’s doable. If you push too hard, you can barrel yourself over a damn cliff.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Demon’s Mom , Maggot, Emmy, Dori, Hammerhead Kelly, Miss Barks, Mr. McCobb, Mrs. McCobb
Page Number: 144-145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

The next surprise won’t leave my brain. The kit she took out of her purse. The spoon she used first, to scrape the patch. The lighter she held underneath. The cotton ball, the syringe, pulling the cap off the needle and holding it in her mouth like a nurse giving booster shots. I don’t know what I said but she could tell I was scared, and she was sweet with me, the same voice she used with Jip. She’d been saving this, because the first time you do it with somebody, they say it’s the best you’ll ever feel in your life. Like having Jesus in your blood.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Dori
Page Number: 351
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 48 Quotes

If you’ve not known the dragon we’re chasing, words may not help. People talk of getting high, this blast you get, not so much what you feel as what you don’t: the sadness and dread in your gut, all the people that have judged you useless. The pain of an exploded leg. This tether that’s meant to attach you to something all your life, be it home or parents or safety, has been flailing around unfastened all this time, tearing at your brain’s roots, whipping around so hard it might take out an eye. All at once, that tether goes still on the floor and you’re at rest.

You start trying to get back there, and pretty soon, you’re just trying to get out of bed.

It becomes your job, staving off the dopesickness for another day. Then it becomes your God. No one ever wanted to join that church.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Dori
Related Symbols: Opioid Painkillers
Page Number: 408
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 53 Quotes

Stupid is all the word I’ve had to cover much of my time on God’s grass. But it’s not stupid that makes a bird fly, or a grasshopper rub its knees together and sing. It’s nature. A junkie catches his flight. That sugar on your brain cells sucks away any other purpose. You can think you’re in charge. Walk around thinking this for hours at a time, or a day, till the clock winds down and the human person you were gets yanked out through whatever hole the devil can find. Learn your lesson, get your feet up under you. You will be knocked down again.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Demon’s Mom , Dori
Page Number: 445
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Demon Copperhead LitChart as a printable PDF.
Demon Copperhead PDF

Dori Quotes in Demon Copperhead

The Demon Copperhead quotes below are all either spoken by Dori or refer to Dori. 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:
Exploitation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 10 Quotes

A ten-year-old getting high on pills. Foolish children. This is what we’re meant to say: Look at their choices, leading to a life of ruin. But lives are getting lived right now, this hour, down in the dirty cracks between the toothbrushued nighty-nights and the full grocery carts, where those words don’t pertain. Children, choices. Ruin, that was the labor and materials we were given to work with. An older boy that never knew safety himself, trying to make us feel safe. We had the moon in the window to smile on us for a minute and tell us the world was ours. Because all the adults had gone off somewhere and left everything in our hands.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Demon’s Mom , Fast Forward, Dori, Tommy Waddell, Mr. Crickson, Swap-Out
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Miss Barks […] stuck with a different theory. I needed to be more pushy with them. Did she give up on her dreams? No, she worked hard for what she wanted. Did I expect anybody to look out for Damon if he wouldn’t look out for himself? Life is what you make it! Here’s where Miss Barks didn’t grow up: foster care. She had no clue how people can be living right on the edge of what’s doable. If you push too hard, you can barrel yourself over a damn cliff.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Demon’s Mom , Maggot, Emmy, Dori, Hammerhead Kelly, Miss Barks, Mr. McCobb, Mrs. McCobb
Page Number: 144-145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

The next surprise won’t leave my brain. The kit she took out of her purse. The spoon she used first, to scrape the patch. The lighter she held underneath. The cotton ball, the syringe, pulling the cap off the needle and holding it in her mouth like a nurse giving booster shots. I don’t know what I said but she could tell I was scared, and she was sweet with me, the same voice she used with Jip. She’d been saving this, because the first time you do it with somebody, they say it’s the best you’ll ever feel in your life. Like having Jesus in your blood.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Dori
Page Number: 351
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 48 Quotes

If you’ve not known the dragon we’re chasing, words may not help. People talk of getting high, this blast you get, not so much what you feel as what you don’t: the sadness and dread in your gut, all the people that have judged you useless. The pain of an exploded leg. This tether that’s meant to attach you to something all your life, be it home or parents or safety, has been flailing around unfastened all this time, tearing at your brain’s roots, whipping around so hard it might take out an eye. All at once, that tether goes still on the floor and you’re at rest.

You start trying to get back there, and pretty soon, you’re just trying to get out of bed.

It becomes your job, staving off the dopesickness for another day. Then it becomes your God. No one ever wanted to join that church.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Dori
Related Symbols: Opioid Painkillers
Page Number: 408
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 53 Quotes

Stupid is all the word I’ve had to cover much of my time on God’s grass. But it’s not stupid that makes a bird fly, or a grasshopper rub its knees together and sing. It’s nature. A junkie catches his flight. That sugar on your brain cells sucks away any other purpose. You can think you’re in charge. Walk around thinking this for hours at a time, or a day, till the clock winds down and the human person you were gets yanked out through whatever hole the devil can find. Learn your lesson, get your feet up under you. You will be knocked down again.

Related Characters: Demon Copperhead (speaker), Demon’s Mom , Dori
Page Number: 445
Explanation and Analysis: