Much handled things are always soft(27).

I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.

How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked. Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’ The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion.

You rely on a sentence to say more than the denotation and the connotation; you revel in the smoke that the words send up.

You been gone too long, Sula. Not too long, but maybe too far.

Love just seems to make life not just livable, but a gallant, gallant event.

Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.