My father saw two black men lynched on his street in Cartersville, as a child. And I think seeing two black businessmen - not vagrants - hanging from trees as a child was traumatic for him.

I think women dwell quite a bit on the duress under which they work, on how hard it is just to do it at all. We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I'm not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for all that.

We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom.

You your own best thing, Sethe. You are.

It would be ten years before they saw each other again, and their meeting would be thick with birds.

Birth, life, and death― each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.