If science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than the gestures of ceremony.

Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them.

Folklore is the boiled-down juice, or pot-likker, of human living.

It is hard to apply oneself to study when there is no money to pay for food and lodging. I almost never explain these things when folks are asking me why I don't do this or that.

When Janie looked out of her door she saw the drifting mists gathered in the west -- that cloud field of the sky -- to arm themselves with thunders and march forth against the world. Louder and higher and lower and wider the sound and motion spread, mounting, sinking, darking.

She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.

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