I took the red dress down and put it against myself. 'Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?' I said.

A room? A nice room? A beautiful room? A beautiful room with bath? Swing high, swing low, swing to and fro...This happened and that happened... And then the days came and I was alone.

When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself; you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul.

Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.

They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.

Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn't every word I've said, every thought I've thought, everything I've done, been tied up, weighted, chained? And mind you, I know that with all this I don't succeed. Or I succeed in flashes only too damned well. ...But think how hard I try and how seldom I dare. Think - and have a bit of pity. That is, if you ever think, you apes, which I doubt.

When he talked his eyes went away from mine and then he forced himself to look straight at me and he began to explain and I knew that he felt very strange with me and that he hated me, and it was funny sitting there and talking like that, knowing he hated me.