If he looked into her face, he would see those haunted, loving eyes. The hauntedness would irritate him - the love would move him to fury. How dare she love him? Hadn't she any sense at all? What was he supposed to do about that? Return it? How? What could his calloused hands produce to make her smile? What of his knowledge of the world and of life could be useful to her? What could his heavy arms and befuddled brain accomplish that would earn him his own respect, that would in turn allow him to accept her love?

The past is interesting to me because it's been dumbed down or flattened out, or academically nitpicked so you can't get any life out of it, you just get data.

you got two feet, Sethe, not four." he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; tactless and quiet.

If you take racism away from certain people - I mean, vitriolic racism as well as the sort of social racist - if you take that away, they may have to face something really terrible, misery, self-misery, and deep pain about who they are.

I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.

When a man angers you, he conquers you.

How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.