1. "This is not a movie about bars and locked doors. It is about being alone when you are not really alone and about being scared all the time." (Pages 3-4)

When I felt like I was alone when I really wasn't is when I went to my church classes and I did not know any one in the class. Or maybe when I first started riding the bus in 7th grade and I only new my brother and sister.

2. "I didn't say it was bad, but wasn't it predictable? You need to predict without predicting. You know what I mean? When you make a film, you leave an impression on the viewers who serve as a kind of jury for your film. If you make your film predictable, they'll make up their minds about it long before it's over." 

To me this means that if you act like people from other cases have acted then they will either believe you or not believe you. An example of this is when I went to a new elementary school and I was acting dumb like many of the other new students other students expected me to be annoying and I ended up not being annoying.

3. "Most people in our communities are decent, hardworking citizens who pursue their own interests legally and without infringing on the rights of others. But there are also monsters in our communities--people who are willing to steal and to kill, people who disregard the rights of others."

To me this is saying not everyone that pursues their interests do it legally or illegally.

4.  "...the laws also protect the accused, and that is the wonder and beauty of the American system of justice. ...We apply the law equally to both sides. The law that protects society all of society.

That all people can not just be simply guilty without being tried for whatever crime they might have committed and are innocent until proven guilty. 

5. "I hate this place. I hate this place. I can't write it enough times to make it look the way I feel. I hate, hate, hate this place!!

Steve obviously hates prison like most people do but he hates it so much he almost can not hold it in.

6.  "It's funny, but when I'm sitting in the courtroom, I don't feel like I'm involved in the case. It's like the lawyers and the judge and everybody are doing a job that involves me, but I don't have a role. It's only when I go back to the cells that I know I'm involved."

When he is court the case so far is focused on the witnesses and the other people involved in the crime. But when he goes back to his cell the other prisoners ask him what he did in the crime or what he stoll.

7.   "Half of those jurors, no matter what they said when we questioned them when we picked the jury, believed you were guilty the moment they laid eyes on you. You're young, you're Black, and you're on trial. What else do they need to know?"

Basically judging Steve because of were he lives, his race, and the people he hung out with.

8.    " 'All they can do is put me in jail,' he said. 'They can't touch my soul.' "

Steve believes that he has been in a lot worse situations then being in jail and it does not make his life any worse.

9.   "I think about myself so much, about what's going to happen to me and all, that I don't think about my folks that much. I know Mama loves me, but I wonder what she's thinking."

That he knows his mother loves him, but he knows that she does think of him as a criminal.

10.  "Seeing my dad cry like that was just so terrible. What was going on between us, me being his son and him being my dad, is pushed down and something else is moving up in its place. It's like a man looking down to see his son and seeing a monster instead."

That he thinks his father is disappointed in him and can't see the boy he raised anymore.

11.   "What did I do? I walked into a drugstore to look for some mints, and then I walked out. What was wrong with that? I didn't kill Mr. Nesbitt. . . Sunset said he committed the crime, Isn't that what being guilty is all about? You actually do something?"

He is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong by scouting the Drugstore.

12.    " His film footage shows me what he's seeing and, to a large extent, what he's thinking. And what he sees, the humanity of it, speaks of a very deep character...

It is my belief that to make an honest film, one has to be an honest person."

Telling that if you are going to tell the truth about something you have to also be truthful.

13.        "They are all equally guilty. The one who grabbed the cigarettes, the one who wrestled for the gun, the one who checked the place to see if the coast was clear."

If you participate in a crime in any way you are guilty of any charges.