The liquor of statecraft is distilled from the mash you got.

Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me.

There's two things everybody got to find out for themselves: they got to find out about love, and they got to find out about living. Now, love is like the sea. It's a moving thing. And it's different on every shore. And living... well... There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun.

It was the meanest moment of eternity.

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.

Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow.