This was my first indication of the quality I feel is most characteristic of Zora’s work: racial health; a sense of black people as complete, complex, undiminished human beings, a sense that is lacking in so much black writing and literature.
Why should the killers of the world be “the future” and not us?
Tashi’s mother and father were just here. They are upset because she spends so much time with Olivia. She is changing, becoming quiet and too thoughtful, they say. She is becoming someone else; her face is beginning to show the spirit of one of her aunts who was sold to the trader because she no longer fit into village life. This aunt refused to marry the man chosen for her. Refused to bow to the chief. Did nothing but lay up, crack cola nuts between her teeth and giggle.
All my life I had to fight... But I never thought I’d have to fight in my own house... I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me.
Of what was plastic made? What died? He knew it was a product of petroleum, of oil, and so he assumed plastic was made out of the very lifeblood of the planet. When all the oil was drained, he imagined the planet quaking and shrinking in on itself, like a squeezed orange that has been sucked to death. He.
I wish you were with me, or I with you.
It’s worse than unwelcome, said Samuel. The Africans don’t even see us. They don’t even recognize us as the brothers and sisters they sold.
That though the heart is breaking, happiness can exist in a moment, also.
I wash her body, it feels like I’m praying. My hands tremble and my breath short.
She was someone who could not be rushed. This seems a small thing. But it is actually a very amazing quality, a very ancient one. She did everything at just the same pace as before, she could tell the time of day or night by the moisture in the atmosphere, and she went about her business as if she would live forever, and forever was very, very long. That is the kind of mujer my mama was. When you look at me you see her, but I have lost ‘forever’; therefore I sometimes hurry.
There is for human beings no greater hell to fear than the one on earth.
Why us always have family reunion on July 4th, say Henrietta, mouth poke out, full of complaint. It so hot. White people busy celebrating they independence from England July 4th, say Harpo, so most black folks don’t have to work. Us can spend the day celebrating each other.
But I don’t think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this is the youngest us felt.
El tiempo se mueve despacio, pero pasa deprisa.
June a good time to go off into the world.
We were not meant to suffer so much and learn nothing.
It seems wiser to do as hermit crabs do, find a shell and inhabit it.
The challenge for me is not to be a follower of Something but to embody it;.
Now I understand that all great teachers love us. This is essentially what makes them great. I also understand that it is this love that never dies, and that, having once experienced it, we have the confidence always exhibited by well-loved humans, to continue extending this same love.
She noticed that other girls were falling in love, getting married. It seemed to produce a state of euphoria in them. She became unsure that her own way of living was as pleasant as she thought it was. It seemed to have an aimlessness to it that did not lead anywhere. Day followed day, and the calm level of her pleasures as a single woman remained constant. Certainly she never reached euphoria. And she wanted euphoria to add to the other good feelings she had.
My heart hurt so much I can’t believe it. How can it keep beating, feeling like this? But I’m a woman. I love you, I say. Whatever happen, whatever you do, I love you.