My sense of humor will always stand in the way of my seeing myself, my family, my race or my nation as the whole intent of the universe.

Anytime you catch folks lying, they scared of something!

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

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

No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

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

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

People can be slave ships in shoes.

The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.

One finds great comfort in good dinners

Night came walking through Egypt swishing her black dress.

It is one of the blessings of this world that few people see visions and dream dreams.

It seems that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life!

Truth is a letter from courage!

When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners.

They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.

So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time.

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

Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.

Perhaps I am just a coward who loves to laugh at life better than I do cry with it. But when I do get to crying, boy, I can roll a mean tear.

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

You can't beat me and my prayers!

...you got tuh go there tuh know there.

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

Lack of power and opportunity passes off too often for virtue.

Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun.

Tea Cake, the son of the Evening Sun, had to die for loving her.

Every tub sits on its bottom.

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

...she woke up in time to see the sun sending up spies ahead of him to mark out the road through the dark. He peeped up over the door sill of the world and made a little foolishness with red.

It seemed to me that the human beings I met reacted pretty much the same to the same stimuli. Different idioms,yes. Circumstances and conditions having power to influence, yes. Inherent difference, no.

Anybody depending on somebody else's gods is depending on a fox not to eat chickens.

I would like just a little of her sunshine to soak into my soul. I would like that a lot.

She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was all there. She took careful stock of herself, then combed her hair and tied it back up again.

So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.

Being under my own roof, and my personality not invaded by others makes a lot of difference in my outlook on life and everything. Oh, to be once more alone in a house!

Half Gods are worshipped with wine and Flowers. Real Gods require Blood.

But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate.

The varicolored cloud dust that the sun has stirred up in the sky was settling by slow degrees.

Now, women forget all the things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

Common danger made common friends

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

For the first time she could see a man's head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted through the tunnel of his mouth.

He Drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.