The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a captivating coming-of-age story about Lily Owens.
Lily is a 14-year-old girl searching for her place in the world.
Through her journey, Lily finds solace, love, and understanding in the home of African-American beekeepers, the Boatwright sisters.
This blog post explores the lessons, themes, and ideas in The Secret Life of Bees quotes.
The Secret Life of Bees Quotes With Page Numbers
“People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 2
“You can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair…”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 1, Page 3
“Up until then I’d thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan. I thought of that policeman, Eddie Hazelwurst, saying I’d lowered myself to be in this house of colored women, and for the very life of me I couldn’t understand how it had turned out this way, how colored women had become the lowest ones on the totem pole. You only had to look at them to see how special they were, like hidden royalty among us. Eddie Hazelwurst. What a shitbucket.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Characters: Lily Melissa Owens and Terrence Ray (T. Ray) Owens), Chapter 1, Pages 26, 26
“Sunset is the saddest light there is.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 2, Page 50
“There’s nothing like a song about lost love to remind you how everything precious can slip from the hinges where you’ve hung it so careful.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 2, Page 50
“I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 3, Page 63
“The body knows things a long time before the mind catches up to them. I was wondering what my body knew that I didn’t.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 4, Page 69
“Now and then sprays of rain flew over and misted our faces. Every time I refused to wipe away the wetness. It made the world seem so alive to me. I couldn’t help but envy the way a good storm got everyone’s attention.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 4, Page 75
“The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 82
“Place a beehive on my grave
And let the honey soak through.
When I’m dead and gone,
That’s what I want from you.
The streets of heaven are gold and sunny,
But I’ll stick with my plot and a pot of honey.
Place a beehive on my grave
And let the honey soak through.”~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (The Honey Song), Chapter 5, Page 83
“I know you’ve run away – everybody gets the urge to do that some time – but sooner or later you’ll want to go home.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 92
“I hadn’t been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called ‘bee yard etiquette’. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don’t swat. Don’t even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee’s temper. Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 92
“I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone’s joy seemed to double it?”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 5, Page 95
“Nothing’s fair in this world. You might as well get that straight right now”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Terrence Ray (T. Ray) Owens), Chapter 5, Page 96
“I have noticed that if you look carefully at people’s eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 6, Pages 104-105
“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 6, Page 107
“You gotta imagine what’s never been.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Zach Taylor), Chapter 7, Page 121
“What’s wrong with living in a dream world? You have to wake up.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 7, Page 121
“Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it’s social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.
—The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, Chapter 8, Page 136
“Did you know there are thirty-two names for love in one of the Eskimo languages?” August said. “And we just have this one. We are so limited, you have to use the same word.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 8, Page 140
“We are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving Rosaleen as you do for loving Coke with peanuts. Isn’t that a shame we don’t have many more ways to say it?”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 8, Page 140
“Nobody around here had ever seen a lady beekeeper till her. She liked to tell everybody that women made the best beekeepers, ’cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. It comes from years of loving children and husbands.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 8, Page 143
“women made the best beekeepers ’cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 8, Page 143
“August: You know, some things don’t matter that much…like the color of a house…But lifting a person’s heart–now that matters. The whole problem with people–”
Lily: They don’t know what matters and what doesn’t…
August:…They know what matters, but they don’t choose it…The hardest thing on earth is to choose what matters.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Characters: August Boatwright and Lily Melissa Owens), Chapter 8, Page 147
“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 8, Page 147
“Actually, you can be bad at something…but if you love doing it, that will be enough. – August Boatwright”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 9, Page 167
“After you get stung, you can’t get unstung no matter how much you whine about it.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 9, Page 167
“Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 9, Page 170
“And I was struck all at once how life was out there going through its regular courses, and I was suspended, waiting, caught in a terrible crevice between living my life and not living it.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 9, Page 176
“I watched him, filled with tenderness and ache, wondering what it was that connected us. Was it the wounded places down inside people that sought each other out, that bred a kind of love between them?”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 9, Page 184
“It’s something everybody wants-for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 9, Page 185
“I’m tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I’m just going to lay it down now. It’s my time to die, and it’s your time to live. Don’t mess it up.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 10, Page 210
“It’s your time to live, don’t mess it up.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 10, Pages 210 and 211
“When it’s time to die, go ahead and die, and when it’s time to live, live. Don’t sort-of-maybe live, but live like you’re going all out, like you’re not afraid.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 10, Page 211
“It was the oldest sound there was. Souls flying away.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 10, Page 213
“We can’t think of changing our skin color. Change the world – that’s how we gotta think.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Zach Taylor), Chapter 11, Page 216
“You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 12, Page 205
“You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet, when to let things take their course.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 12, Page 236
“It was the first time I’d ever said the words to another person, and the sound of them broke open my heart.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 12, Page 242
“People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 12, Page 248
“My mother’s life was way too heavy for me.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 12, Page 249
“Knowing can be a curse on a person’s life. I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 12, Pages 255-56
“There is nothing perfect…only life.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 12, Page 256
“In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional…What a special case I was.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 14, Page 278
“It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 14, Page 279
“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 14, Page 285
“You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 14, Page 288
“And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 14, Page 289
“If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: August Boatwright), Chapter 14, Page 298
“In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.”
~Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, (Character: Lily Melissa Owens as the narrator), Chapter 14, Page 301
What does the epigraph in Chapter 3 of The Secret Life of Bees mean?
The epigraph in Chapter 3 of The Secret Life of Bees suggests that one must look beyond what is immediately visible to find something truly precious.
This can be interpreted as a metaphor for Lily’s journey as she explores the unknown and discovers something special from Rosaleen, her friend and companion.
What does the epigraph in Chapter 4 of The Secret Life of Bees mean?
The epigraph in Chapter 4 of The Secret Life of Bees implies that female strength and resilience can be found in the natural world, symbolized by the honeybee.
It speaks to themes of female strength and power in the novel and reminds the Boatwright sisters that they are not alone.
What does the epigraph in chapter 7 of Secret Life of Bees mean?
The epigraph in chapter seven of The Secret Life of Bees suggests that Lily and Zach’s relationship is very early, just like the bees. They are just beginning to get to know one another.
What does Chapter 11 epigraph mean in Secret Life of Bees?
The epigraph of Chapter 11 suggests that it takes hard work and dedication to create something meaningful, like how Lily and Zach have gone through hardship to find each other and form a meaningful relationship worth cherishing.