The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963

by

Christopher Paul Curtis

Rufus is a new student at Kenny’s school. Originally from the South, Rufus has a strong Southern accent and a friendly way of treating others. Unfortunately for him, his kindness attracts negative attention at Kenny’s school, causing people like Larry Dunn to bully him. Kenny, for his part, is happy about this at first, since he hopes Rufus will distract people from picking on him. However, he soon becomes friends with Rufus and discovers that he’s incredibly nice, so he starts playing with him on a daily basis. And because Rufus’s family doesn’t have a lot of money, Kenny shares his lunches with him. In the end, then, Rufus becomes Kenny’s closest friend.

Rufus Quotes in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963

The The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 quotes below are all either spoken by Rufus or refer to Rufus. 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:
Change, Coming of Age, and Maturity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

Then he said something that made me get all funny and nervous inside, he said, “How come your eyes ain’t lookin’ in the same way?” I looked to see if maybe this was the start of some teasing but he looked like he really wanted to know. He wasn’t staring at me either, he was kind of looking down and kicking at the dirt with his raggedy shoes.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Rufus (speaker)
Related Symbols: Kenny’s Lazy Eye
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

The other thing wrong with him was his clothes. It didn’t take people too long before they counted how many pairs of pants and shirts Rufus and Cody had. That was easy to do because Rufus only had two shirts and two pairs of pants and Cody only had three shirts and two pairs of pants. They also had one pair of blue jeans that they switched off on; some days Rufus wore them and some days Cody rolled the legs up and put them on.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Rufus, Cody
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

I couldn’t believe how sad I got. It’s funny how things could change so much and you wouldn’t notice. All of a sudden I started remembering how much I hated riding the bus, all of a sudden I started remembering how lunchtime under the swing set alone wasn’t very much fun, all of a sudden I started remembering that before Rufus came to Flint my only friend was the world’s biggest dinosaur thief, LJ Jones, all of a sudden I remembered that Rufus and Cody were the only two kids in the whole school (other than Byron and Joey) that I didn’t automatically look at sideways.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Byron Watson, Joetta Watson (Joey), Rufus, Cody, LJ Jones
Related Symbols: Kenny’s Lazy Eye
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Byron jerked Larry’s arms over his head three times. Larry Dunn was really tough! Not only because he wasn’t crying when By was going to mess him up, but also because when Byron jerked his arms over his head like that we all could see that Larry’s skinny little windbreaker was ripped under both arms and Larry just had on a T-shirt underneath it.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Byron Watson, Rufus, Larry Dunn
Related Symbols: Leather Gloves
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 PDF

Rufus Quotes in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963

The The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 quotes below are all either spoken by Rufus or refer to Rufus. 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:
Change, Coming of Age, and Maturity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

Then he said something that made me get all funny and nervous inside, he said, “How come your eyes ain’t lookin’ in the same way?” I looked to see if maybe this was the start of some teasing but he looked like he really wanted to know. He wasn’t staring at me either, he was kind of looking down and kicking at the dirt with his raggedy shoes.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Rufus (speaker)
Related Symbols: Kenny’s Lazy Eye
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

The other thing wrong with him was his clothes. It didn’t take people too long before they counted how many pairs of pants and shirts Rufus and Cody had. That was easy to do because Rufus only had two shirts and two pairs of pants and Cody only had three shirts and two pairs of pants. They also had one pair of blue jeans that they switched off on; some days Rufus wore them and some days Cody rolled the legs up and put them on.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Rufus, Cody
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

I couldn’t believe how sad I got. It’s funny how things could change so much and you wouldn’t notice. All of a sudden I started remembering how much I hated riding the bus, all of a sudden I started remembering how lunchtime under the swing set alone wasn’t very much fun, all of a sudden I started remembering that before Rufus came to Flint my only friend was the world’s biggest dinosaur thief, LJ Jones, all of a sudden I remembered that Rufus and Cody were the only two kids in the whole school (other than Byron and Joey) that I didn’t automatically look at sideways.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Byron Watson, Joetta Watson (Joey), Rufus, Cody, LJ Jones
Related Symbols: Kenny’s Lazy Eye
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Byron jerked Larry’s arms over his head three times. Larry Dunn was really tough! Not only because he wasn’t crying when By was going to mess him up, but also because when Byron jerked his arms over his head like that we all could see that Larry’s skinny little windbreaker was ripped under both arms and Larry just had on a T-shirt underneath it.

Related Characters: Kenny Watson (speaker), Byron Watson, Rufus, Larry Dunn
Related Symbols: Leather Gloves
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis: