How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
He had been picked up, the evening before, in a raid on an apartment downtown, for peddling and using heroin. (3)
This is the first we really hear of Sonny or his drug use, and the statement is shockingly direct. There is no sugarcoating the presence of drugs in this story.
Quote #2
Yet it had happened and here I was, talking about algebra to a lot of boys who might, every one of them for all I knew, be popping off needles every time they went to the head. Maybe it did more for them than algebra could. (4)
The narrator sort of senses the futility of trying to teach high school math to a group of kids who might never get out of Harlem. Even he can acknowledge that there might be something more immediately gratifying in drugs.
Quote #3
I'm surprised at Sonny, though . . . I thought Sonny was a smart boy, I thought he was too smart to get hung. (21)
Sonny's friend says this to the narrator at the beginning of the story. It's an interesting statement coming from a drug user. Being smart or not has nothing to do with becoming an addict, but this statement makes it sound like anyone with enough intelligence can take drugs and will themselves to not get addicted.
Quote #4
You mean – they'll let him out. And then he'll just start working his way back in again. You mean he'll never kick the habit. Is that what you mean? (36)
The narrator wrestles with the idea that Sonny may never kick his drug addiction. If Sonny never gets off drugs, the narrator will never get his brother back.
Quote #5
Sometime I think I'm going to flip and never get outside and sometime I think I'll come straight back. I tell you one thing, though, I'd rather blow my brains out than go through this again. (51)
Drug addiction is a vicious monster. Sonny would rather die than have to face being in prison and getting himself off drugs again. This is where he starts to let us know how truly horrible things have been for him.
Quote #6
"When she was singing before," said Sonny, abruptly, "her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes – when it's in your veins. It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time." (195)
Sonny is trying so hard to explain to the narrator what it feels like to be high on heroin. It makes sense that he would compare shooting up to music, the language he knows best.
Quote #7
It makes you feel – in control. Sometimes you've got to have that feeling. (195)
Having to grow up in an environment in which he has no control over anything (his future, where he'll live, what he'll do for a living) is a pretty debilitating feeling for Sonny. By making the decision to do drugs, he gains a momentary sense that he's controlling his own destiny.
Quote #8
"It's not so much to play. It's to stand it, to be able to make it at all. On any level." He frowned and smiled: "In order to keep from shaking to pieces." (201)
Sonny doesn't want his brother to think that being a jazz musician is what causes him to turn to drugs. He's trying to make him see that at some point drugs help him just get through the day, to survive another 24 hours.
Quote #9
Some guys, you can tell from the way they play, they on something all the time. And you can see that, well, it makes something real for them. (203)
Sonny is trying to make it clear that different people do drugs for different reasons. For some of the musicians he knows, drugs are a way to stake a place in the world, to keep them rooted in reality. It's almost as though their suffering is so great that the world doesn't seem real. They have to do drugs to feel like they're a part of something that actually exists.
Quote #10
I couldn't tell you when Mama died – but the reason I wanted to leave Harlem so bad was to get away from drugs. And then, when I ran away, that's what I was running from – really. (218)
Sonny wants so badly to get away from his addiction that he's willing to leave his family behind. That tells us how truly bad things were for him, but it also shows us how misguided he was in thinking he could just run away from drugs. In the end, he ends up back at the very place he tried so hard to escape.