# Quote — Orson Scott Card, Prentice Alvin

> Slavery, that was a kind of alchemy for such White folk, or so they reckoned. They calculated a way of turning each bead of a Black man's sweat into gold and each moan of despair from a Black woman's throat into the sweet clear sound of a silver coin ringing on the money-changer's table. There was buying and selling of souls in that place. Yet there was nary a one of them who understood the whole price they paid for owning other folk.

- Author: [Orson Scott Card](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card.md)
- Book: [Prentice Alvin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/prentice-alvin.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Prentice_Alvin_(1989)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/prentice-alvin/slavery-that-was

## More from this book

> Last night Alvin just got mad, which she said would only guarantee that he'd stay stupid.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/prentice-alvin/last-night-alvin.md)

> Was it worth it? To lose part of who he had been in order to live free? Perhaps this new self was better than the old.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/prentice-alvin/was-it-worth.md)

> You can't change what you don't understand.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/prentice-alvin/you-cant-change.md)