“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”

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.

I always told myself never to have a plan B – I feel like that’s also one of the reasons I’m doing what I’m doing now because I just never really rested until I got here.

Respect other people’s feelings. It might mean nothing to you, but it could mean everything to them.

I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart.

One of the benefits that oppression secures for the oppressor is that the humblest among them feels superior.

I feel I have lived my whole life, day to day, without planning anything and I like it that way. Things change so fast, one minute you are here, the next minute you are on a plane, it’s great fun.

I feel the gods are pretty dead, though I suppose I ought to know that however, to be somewhat more philosophical in the matter, if atheism means simply not being a theist, then of course I’m an atheist.

When you do the right thing, you get the feeling of peace and serenity associated with it. Do it again and again.

The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.