Wealth & Money Quote by Margaret Walker

Margaret Walker’s line cuts against the American reflex to treat money as the master key. It’s not anti-ambition so much as anti-reduction: a reminder that the most consequential doors in a life are often guarded by people, not price tags. “Friends” signals social capital built slowly and reciprocally; “good manners” isn’t old-fashioned etiquette for its own sake, but a practiced respect that lowers the temperature in tense rooms and makes others feel seen. Together, they suggest mobility through trust - the kind you can’t buy on the spot.

The subtext is sharper than it first appears. Walker is writing out of a century when Black artists and intellectuals routinely encountered institutions that wouldn’t take their money even if they had it. In that landscape, relationships and comportment weren’t just niceties; they were tools of navigation and survival, ways to move through hostile systems while holding onto dignity. “Carry you” implies fatigue and burden, as if the world is something you have to be transported through, not simply entered.

There’s also an implicit critique of transactional living. Money can purchase access, but it can’t reliably purchase belonging, discretion, mentorship, or forgiveness. Manners and friendship operate differently: they create a reputation that precedes you, a network that vouches for you when you’re absent. Walker’s genius is her economy. She makes the argument without sermonizing, turning a proverb into an indictment: if cash is your only language, you’ll be stranded the moment the conversation turns human.