1. Guilt
1.1. The author believes that you need to feel guilt to unlock the path to other emotions.
1.1.1. "I scrambled to my feet and just stood there and stared at her, and that was the moment when childhood faded and womanhood began. That violent, crazy act was the last act of childhood. For as I gazed at the immobile face with the sad, weary eyes, I gazed upon a kind of reality which is hidden to childhood."
1.1.2. "Of course I could not express the things that I knew about Miss Lottie as I stood there awkward and ashamed. The years have put words to the things I knew in that moment, and as I look back upon it, I know that that moment marked the end of innocence."
1.1.3. "I did not join the merriment when the kids gathered again under the oak in our bare yard. Suddenly I was ashamed, and I did not like being ashamed. The child in me sulked and said it was all in fun, but the woman in me flinched at the thought of the malicious attack that I had led."
1.2. The author believes that guilt is important because when you feel bad you are most likely gonna keep that with you so you don't make the same mistake twice.
1.2.1. "Whenever the memory of those marigolds flashes across my mind, a strange nostalgia comes with it and remains long after the picture has faded. I feel again the chaotic emotions of adolescence, illusive as smoke, yet as real as the potted geranium before me now. Joy and rage and wild animal gladness and shame become tangled together in the multicolored skein of fourteen-going-on-fifteen as I recall that devastating moment when I was suddenly more woman than child, years ago in Miss Lottie’s yard. I think of those marigolds at the strangest times; I remember them vividly now as I desperately pass away the time."
1.2.2. "Yet, there are times when the image of those passionate yellow mounds returns with a painful poignancy. For one does not have to be ignorant and poor to find that his life is as barren as the dusty yards of our town. And I too have planted marigolds."
2. Understanding
2.1. The author believes that it is important to understand the reasons behind a persons actions.
2.1.1. a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility.
2.1.2. "“I ain’t talking about nobody else, I m talking about me. God knows I try.” My mother said something I could not hear, and my father cried out louder, “What must a man do, tell me that?” “Damn Mr. Ellis’s coat! And damn his money! You think I want white folks’ leavings? “Damn, Maybelle”—and suddenly he sobbed, loudly and painfully, and cried helplessly and hopelessly in the dark night."
2.2. The author believes that you need to understand what different people are going through because they could need your help.
2.2.1. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life. Now at the end of that life she had nothing except a falling down hut, a wrecked body, and John Burke, the mindless son of her passion.
2.2.2. Whatever verve there was left in her, whatever was of love and beauty and joy that had not been squeezed out by life, had been there in the marigolds she had so tenderly cared for.
2.3. The author believes that there are some things you won't fully understand until later in your life.
2.3.1. "For some perverse reason, we children hated those marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they were too beautiful; they said too much that we could not understand; they did not make sense."
3. Compassion
3.1. The author believes that one cannot show compassion when you don't know what is going on.
3.1.1. " Miss Lottie didn’t like intruders either, especially children. She never left her yard, and nobody ever visited her. We never knew how she managed those necessities which depend on human interaction—how she ate, for example, or even whether she ate. When we were tiny children, we thought Miss Lottie was a witch and we made up tales that we half believed ourselves about her exploits. We were far too sophisticated now, of course, to believe the witch nonsense. But old fears have a way of clinging like cobwebs, and so when we sighted the tumbledown shack, we had to stop to reinforce our nerves."
3.1.2. "How could it be that my father was crying? But the sobs went on, unstifled, finally quieting until I could hear my mother’s voice, deep and rich, humming softly as she used to hum to a frightened child. The world had lost its boundary lines. My mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; my father, who was the rock on which the family had been built, was sobbing like the tiniest child."
3.2. The author believes that compassion should be shown to everyone.
3.2.1. " In that humiliating moment I looked beyond myself and into the depths of another person. This was the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence."
3.3. The author believes that you need to see where compassion is needed by others.
3.3.1. "We had crouched down out of sight in the bushes, where we stifled the giggles that insisted on coming. Miss Lottie gazed warily across the road for a moment, then cautiously returned to her weeding. Zing—Joey sent a pebble into the blooms, and another marigold was beheaded. Miss Lottie was enraged now. She began struggling to her feet, leaning on a rickety cane and shouting. “Y’all git! Go on home!” Then the rest of the kids let loose with their pebbles, storming the flowers and laughing wildly and senselessly at Miss Lottie’s impotent rage. She shook her stick at us and started shakily toward the road crying, “Git ‘long! John Burke! John Burke, come help!”"
3.3.2. "The mood lasted all afternoon. When we ate the beans and rice that was supper that night, I did not notice my father’s silence, for he was always silent these days, nor did I notice my mother’s absence, for she always worked until well into evening."
4. Empathy
4.1. The author believes that empathy is important to see the human part in people.
4.1.1. "The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman..."
4.1.2. "I had never heard a man cry before. I did not know men ever cried."
4.2. The author believes that empathy can help you be more human as well.
4.2.1. "Where did I fit into this crazy picture? I do not now remember my thoughts, only a feeling of great bewilderment and fear."
4.2.2. "...the bewilderment of being neither child nor woman and yet both at once, the fear unleashed by my father’s tears. And these feelings combined in one great impulse toward destruction."