“It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.”

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.

The sun had become a light yellow yolk and was walking with red legs across the sky.

Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches

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

He looked like the love thoughts of women.

In the cool afternoon the fiend from hell specifically sent to lovers arrived at Janie’s ear. Doubt.

She wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.

If you fight with all your might, there is a chance of life; where as death is certain if you cling to your corner.

Death is with you all the time; you get deeper in it as you move towards it, but it’s not unfamiliar to you. It’s always been there, so what becomes unfamiliar to you when you pass away from the moment is really life.

A bunch of miserable, angry people exploiting death.

Death meant little to me. It was the last joke in a series of bad jokes.

Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Even for those to whom life and death are equal jests. There are some things that are still held in respect.

If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.