She often spoke to falling seeds and said, "Ah hope you fall on soft ground," because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman.

Tell me, and then again show me, so I can know.

Distance is the only cure for certain diseases.

I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.

Gods always behave like the people who make them.

Every tub sits on its bottom.

Look lak she been livin' through uh hundred years in January without one day of spring.