"The feeble-minded and the man of genius should not be equal before the law" Alexis Carrel pg.60

Alexis was a corrupt racist man who believed in the superiority of the white race. He agreed Hitler's point of view and he believed that anyone who wasn't white should be eother killed or should forcefully be sterilized 

"...the worlds' most famous vulture, feeding on human specimens." pg.30

Gey was a man of science and his motives were pure all he wanted to do was cure diseases and be a help to society. He was the doctor who took Henrietta's cells without her permission to experiment on them to try and cure diseases.

"Margaret taught George everything he knew about keeping culture sterile." pg.36

Margaret was George Gey's wife. She taught George how to do many things like keeping culture sterile. In other words she was the backbone of the lab.

"She was tough...Nothing scared Hennie", Sadie. pg. 45

Henrietta is the main character in the book. Just about everything in this book is about her and her cells. She is the person whose cells were taken without her permission and were used to experiment on.

"they described Southam's research using words like illegal ,immoral , and deplorable." pg.  133

Southam was an extremely corrupt man. He had a good goal to help cure cancer but the methods he was using to find the cure or more information about was very wrong but this opinion differ from person to person.

"I feel very bad.. People should have told them." pg. 189

 She is now a director of medical genetics at the American Red Cross. She was the person that was sent to take blood from Henrietta's immediate family. She is a Chinese woman that felt sympathy towards the Lacks family after she found out the truth.

"He shook her hand and said that Henrietta had made an important contribution to science....McKusick did not explain why he was having someone draw blood from Deborah." pg.188-189

He was a leading scientist in the field of genetics. He never explained to the Lacks why he ordered to draw some blood from them. He was just happy that Henrietta had made a "contribution to science.

"Cofield called himself doctor and lawyer, and seemed more capable of getting and understanding more information from Hopkins than the family ever could." pg. 227

 Cofield was some how related to Deborah because of her ex-husband. He first tried to help Deborah sue Hopkins from money but ended up filing a lawsuit because Deborah breached a contract that allowed him to have access to Henrietta's medical records

"...was already on probationary status for being loud and aggressive." pg. 243

Zakariya is Henrietta's youngest son. He had always been in trouble and was very angry. He constantly got in trouble and ended going to prison for killing someone. He was nearly blind and is partially deaf.  He wants revege for what the scientists did to Henrietta

" For each trip, Deborah filled her jeep floor to ceiling with every kind of shoes and clothes she might need(You never know when the weather going to change.)"

Deborah is the 4th child of Henrietta. She has many medical problems, including being almost deaf. She has two sons and is now a grandmother. She was the one who helped Rebecca Skloot make her book so she could help make the truth come to light.

"You always know what I need. You know how to take care of me." pg. 293 Deborah

Gary is one of Deborah's cousins. He helped take Deborah feel better when she was extremely stressed about the information she found out about Elsie. He used to be caught up with women and alcohol but then after a couple heart attacks and bypasses he woke up preaching.

"I was starting to wonder if you were even human " pg.284 Deborah

She is the only person who truly tried to help Deborah find out information about her mother. She is a white science journalist who spend more than a decade trying to find out information about Henrietta to write her book.