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

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.

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.

People can be slave ships in shoes.

Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see.

She didn’t read books so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done ‘heard’ bout you just what they hope done happened.

Night came walking through Egypt swishing her black dress.

She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at the sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

Someone who loves you won’t walk away from you so easily. Someone who loves you will hurt over even the idea of being apart from you.

Women don’t need protection from men, they need men not to hurt them in the first place.

I could have given your heart a thousand roses. But you didn’t want one.

He wasn’t even mine yet I had to give him up It hurt to watch him laugh with her not giving me a fuck.

Nothing was trying to hurt me, except my own thoughts, which felt like needles, trying to stitch tears within my eyes.

You didn’t need to make her cuts this deep.

You are brave for giving love a second chance even after it caused you so much pain the first time.

Hatred has a way of hurting the heart which carries it.