Some colored people so scared of whitefolks they claim to love the cotton gin.
We’re going to have to debunk the myth that Africa is a heaven for black people – especially black women. We’ve been the mule of the world there and the mule of the world here.
No matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world. We are one people.
I can spend two hours grubbing about in my garden, dazed with pleasure and intent, and it feels like five minutes.
You got to fight them, Celie, she say. I can’t do it for you. You got to fight them for yourself. I don’t say nothing. I think bout Nettie, dead. She fight, she run away. What good it do? I don’t fight, I stay where I’m told. But I’m alive.
It must become a right of every person to die of old age. And if we secure this right for ourselves, we can, coincidentally, assure it for the planet.
HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
Well, sometime Mr – – git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways. You ought to bash Mr – – head open, she say. Think bout heaven later.
I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here.
Criticism is painful when it’s not done with love.
If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content.
HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child.
HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long.
It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don’t mean nothing if you don’t ast why you here, period.
The good news may be that Nature is phasing out the white man, but the bad news is that’s who She thinks we all are.
In my opinion and experience, imperialists of all nations and races will tell us anything to keep us fighting. For them.
Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence – as it saves most writers who live in ‘interesting’ oppressive times and are not afflicted by personal immunity.
You must run around like a crazy person or walk sedately honoring the dead.
I’m the kind of woman that likes to enjoy herselves in peace.
Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the evening before.