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.

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

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.

Common danger made common friends.

So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

you got tuh go there tuh know there.

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.

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

Every tub sits on its bottom.

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

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

You can’t beat me and my prayers.

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.

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

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.

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

Truth is a letter from courage.

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

Night came walking through Egypt swishing her black dress.

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.

One finds great comfort in good dinners.

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

People can be slave ships in shoes.

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

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

Anytime you catch folks lying, they scared of something.

Mystery is the essence of divinity

Mystery is the essence of divinity.

My head was full of misty fumes of doubt.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.

He looked like the love thoughts of women.

You heard me. You ain’t blind.

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.

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

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

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.

Love, I find, is like singing.

It was the meanest moment of eternity.

They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.

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

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

I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me.

A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.

She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.

No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.

Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.

Those that don’t got it, can’t show it. Those that got it, can’t hide it.

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

Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.

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.

I love myself when I am laughing. . . and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.