The most important question in the world is, 'Why is the child crying?'

I think the War on Terror is really absurd, especially coming from a country that is founded on terrorism.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

Expecting anything, living frugally in surprise.

You are saying, are you not, I said to Manuelito, that stories have more room in them than ideas? [...] He laughed. That is correct, Señor. It is as if ideas are made of blocks. Rigid and hard. And stories are made of a gauze that is elastic. You can almost see through it, so what is beyond is tantalizing. You can't quite make it out; and because the imagination is always moving forward, you yourself are constantly stretching. Stories are the way spirit is exercised.

I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.

I grew up in the South [USA states] under segregation. I know what terrorism feels like - when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn't look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. That's terrorism, too.