Jason Finn: Marcus

Freedom Writers

Marcus

Marcus: That Miep Gies lady, the one that help hide her, I like her. I got all these other books about her from the library.
Erin Gruwell: Wow, you used your library card?
Marcus: Nah...

Marcus: I've never had a hero before. But you are my hero.
Miep Gies: Oh, no. No, no, no, young man, no. I am not a hero. No. I did what I had to do, because it was the right thing to do. That is all.

Marcus: Lady, stop acting like you tryin' to understand our situation, and just do your little babysitting up there.
Erin Gruwell: That's what you think this is?
Marcus: It ain't nothing else. When I look out in the world I don't see nobody that looks like me with their pockets full unless they're rapping a lyrics or dribbling a ball, so what else you got in here for me?
Erin Gruwell: And what if you can't rap a lyric or dribble a ball?
Andre: It ain't this.
Marcus: I know that's right.
Erin Gruwell: And you all think you're gonna make it to graduation like this?
Andre: I made it to HIGH school ain't nobody stop me.
Marcus: Lady I'm lucky if I make it to 18, we in a war! We graduating every day we live because we ain't afraid to die, protecting our own. At least when you die for your own, you die with respect, you die a warrior.

Marcus: Clive was my boy. He had my back plenty of times. Me and him was like one fist. One army.
[Clive pulls a gun out of a paper bag and accidentally shoots himself]
Marcus: I sat there until the police came. But when they come, all they see is a dead body, a gun, and a nigger. They took me to juvenile hall. First night was the scariest. Inmates banging on the walls, throwing up gang signs, yelling out who they were and where they from. I cried my first night. I never let anybody know that. I spent the next few years in and out of cells. Every day I worry, when will I be free?

Ben: Ms. G, we can fight this y'know, like the Freedom Riders.
Marcus: Yeh yeh, we all drive around on a bus, only this time they try and bust us up we bust a few of them board member's heads.
Brandy: Or we can go to the newspapers. Media...?
Tito: Or we can paint the administration building with the word assholes, in various colours.