The Women of Brewster Place (1989)

Oprah Winfrey: Mattie Michael

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mattie Michael : [referring to Etta's Mae's flirtation with Reverend Woods]  If you had batted your eyelashes any faster, we'd have had a dust storm up in there.

  Etta Mae : You said you wanted me to meet some nice men. Well, I met one.

  Mattie Michael : Etta, I meant a man who'd be serious about settling down with you. Why, you're going on like a schoolgirl. Can't you see what he's got in mind?

  Etta Mae : [in a cold yet angry tone]  The only thing I see is that you're telling me I'm not good enough for a man like that. Oh, no, not Etta Johnson. No upstanding decent man could ever see anything in her but a quick good time. Well, I'll tell you something Mattie Michael. I've always traveled first class, maybe not in the way you'd approve of with all your fine Christian principles, but it's done all right by me. And I'm gonna keep top drawer till I leave this earth. Don't you think I got a mirror? Each year there's a new line to cover. I lay down with this body and get up with it every morning. And each morning it cries for just a little more rest than it did the day before. Well, I'm finally gonna get that rest and it's going to be with a man like Reverend Woods. And you and the rest of those slack-mouthed gossips be damned! They'll be humming a different tune when I show up there the wife of a big preacher. I've always known what they say about me behind my back, but I never thought you were right in there with them.

• Mattie Michael : Ciel, I promise you, if you leave this world, it'll be over my dead body!

• Mattie Michael : [Etta Mae flirtatiously accepts an invitation to dance]  Woman, you better stay here and act your age.

  Etta Mae : Ooh, I'm acting it. 35!

  Mattie Michael : Hm! You've got regrets older than that.

• Etta Mae : [re babies]  All yours. Built-in heartache for the next twenty years!

  Mattie Michael : [reprovingly]  Etta...

  Etta Mae : Now me, when I want ready-made trouble, I dig up a handsome man. No diapers to change, and I walk when I'm ready.

• Mattie Michael : Ain't that the story. Colored folks try to do a little something, somebody come along and throw up a wall.

  Kiswana : Well, why don't you do something about it?

  Mattie Michael : What I'm supposed to do? I could tear down this wall with my bare hands; they'd just send somebody in the next day to put it up again.

  Kiswana : But at least you would have done something!

  Mattie Michael : Ain't no use. You're young. You'll see what I mean.

  Kiswana : No, I won't. That's the difference between you and me.

• Ciel : [while sobbing intensely]  I ain't got nothing to live for, Mattie!

  Mattie Michael : [wraps arms around Ciel]  That ain't true, baby. You got youself. You got yourself.

• Mattie Michael : [rocking in a chair and sewing]  So, trusting you stay out of jail, what you intend to do now?

  Etta Mae : I guess I could get a couple thousand for the car. That'll tide me over until my next... business opportunity comes along.

  Mattie Michael : You and your business opportunities. Why don't you just settle down and get yourself a regular job?

  Etta Mae : A job doing what? What kind of experience I got? Nothing that's gonna get me a regular job.

  Mattie Michael : You don't know that.

  Etta Mae : I do know it. And why're you on me?

  [Goes over to where Mattie is and takes a drink] 

  Etta Mae : I ain't heard nothin' about you working.

  Mattie Michael : Child, what'd I got to work for? Them days is behind me.

  Etta Mae : Oh, Mattie. I don't need no job.

  [Sits down in a chair beside Mattie] 

  Etta Mae : What I need is to find me a good man and live quietly in my old age.

  Mattie Michael : Uh huh. So where you planning on finding a "good man"?

  Etta Mae : That's the part I gotta figure out

  [They giggle a little] 

  Etta Mae : Problem is, only decent men are either dead or waiting to be born.

  Mattie Michael : Why don't you go to meeting with me tonight?

  Etta Mae : What you gonna do? Pray me up a man?

  Mattie Michael : There's a few decent, civil-minded men in our church. Widowers and such.

  [Mattie gets up and walks across the room] 

  Mattie Michael : Beside, a little prayer wouldn't hurt your soul a bit.

  Etta Mae : I'll thank you to leave my soul out of this.

  [Mattie faces her] 

  Etta Mae : Besides, if your church got all those fine, decent men, how come you ain't snapped one yet?

  Mattie Michael : Child, I done banked them fires a long time ago, seeing as how you still keeping up steam.

  [They laugh]