The body is ready to have babies. Nature wants it done then, when the body can handle it, not after 40, when the income can handle it.

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

I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands.

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

I sometimes lose interest in the characters and get much more interested in the trees and animals.

Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.