Maybe if she had known some other way to try, she might have made his face different. But what the other way could be, she had no idea.
Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness.
Now, women forget all the things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief.
Ah done growed ten feet higher from jus’ listenin’ tuh you, Janie. Ah ain’t satisfied with mahself no mo’. Ah means tuh make Sam take me fishin’ wid him after this.
Long before the year was up, Janie noticed that her husband had stopped talkin to he rin rhymes.
Common danger made common friends.
Half Gods are worshipped with wine and Flowers. Real Gods require Blood.
It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo’ papa and yo’ mama and nobody else can’t tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.
Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.
All my skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.
Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!
Bitterness is the coward’s revenge on the world for having been hurt.
It is a curious thing to be a woman in the Caribbean after you have been a woman in these United States.
If you haven’t got it, you can’t show it. If you have got it, you can’t hide it.
Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me.