Beloved Quotes

Context

This famous line is from Beloved by Toni Morrison.

We know all about numbers being spiteful. We took high school algebra. We've experienced the pain.

But in this instance, the quote isn't actually referring to a number. There's not some mysterious mathematical entity that's come to wreak havoc on the characters in our story. Here, "124" refers to the ghost of a murdered child who returns to haunt her mother, who so… unmotheringly… offed her.

She's called "124" because that's the address of the house where the haunting takes place, and it's the easiest way to refer to her before anyone figures out who she really is. Although, considering the quick tempers of ghosts, it probably wasn't the best idea to make her feel like she's had a convict number slapped on her for mere identification purposes.

This line kicks off the whole novel, and is followed by the words "full of a baby's venom," so even before we find out this is a ghost story, we instantly get a rough sense of who this "124" might be. We don't know yet what could have possibly happened to make this baby so angry, but we have 316 more pages to find out.

At this point, who knows? Maybe someone just needs to have their diaper changed.

Where you've heard it

While the line is well-known in association with the classic work of literature it appears in, it doesn't come up a lot in conversation. It's not one of those handy catchphrases that can apply to a large number of situations. It really doesn't ever make sense to recite it—unless you just finished going on 150 or so speed dates and are telling your BFF what stood out about each of them.

That said, if you feel like sporting a T-shirt with the line branded onto the front of it… knock yourself out.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Bless her heart—Toni Morrison is one heck of a writer, but quoting her generally ranks pretty high on the pretentious scale. Here's a sentence that makes absolutely zero sense on its own...at least until we've read the book. (Sounds like someone likes knowing something the average Shmooper doesn't know.) However, since the sentence is short and sweet and there are no particularly tough words here, we won't go too hard on her.