There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every man's spice-box seasons his own food.

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.

...she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see...

If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.

Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them.

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.

Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!

He looked like the love thoughts of women.

You heard me. You ain't blind.

It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.

Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person.

Please God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah'm is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin', Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time.

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.

You'se something tuh make uh man forgit to git old and forgit tuh die.

There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them.

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

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.

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.

She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen.

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.

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

My head was full of misty fumes of doubt.

Mystery is the essence of divinity

Look lak she been livin' through uh hundred years in January without one day of spring.

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

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.