Dear God...I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me.

He beat me like he beat the children. Cept he don't never hardly beat them. He say, Celie, git the belt. The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks. It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man.

You can't truly have an open heart until it's been broken.

Critics don't really affect the fact that we live in this paradise and what the meaning of that [is]. And what luck to have this!

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

Meditation is like the cloak of the good thief. You find a corner or somewhere where you can actually entertain your own self and your own soul, and understand what your work [is] here.

When people become elders - when they're older; they can be old without being an elder, really. They [can] just be old and not very useful.