Don't you love nobody better'n you do yo'self. Do, you'll be dying befo' yo' time is out.

Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.

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.

To a haughty belly, kindness is hard to swallow and harder to digest.

I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background........Beside the waters of the Hudson" I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again." How It Feels to Be Colored Me

I will fight for my country, but I will not lie for her.

The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.