“She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”

He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.

Anytime you catch folks lying, they scared of something!

It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.

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.

There is two things everybody got to find out for themselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.

The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor.

Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.

My head was full of misty fumes of doubt.

Those that don’t got it, can’t show it. Those that got it, can’t hide it.

I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me.

Bitterness is the coward’s revenge on the world for having been hurt.

If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.

I will fight for my country, but I will not lie for her.

And I can’t die easy thinking maybe the menfolks white or black is making a spit cup out of you. Have some sympathy for me. Put me down easy, Janie, I’m a cracked plate.

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.

I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car, and into another.

It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.

It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen of the jury; it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death.

Someday death will take us to another star.