It didn't take long to realize I didn't hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don't mean nothing if you don't ast why you here, period

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.

Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.

But it ain't easy, trying to do without God even if you know he ain't there, trying to do without him is a strain

Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance and holler, just trying to be loved.

Now. Is this life or not?I be so calm.If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content.And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.

And I try to teach my heart not to want nothing it can't have.

Sofia the kind of woman no matter what she have in her hand she make it look like a weapon.

Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful, and lowdown.

It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how I come to know trees fear man.

Hard times' is a phrase the English love to use, when speaking of Africa. And it is easy to forget that Africa's 'hard times' were made harder by them.

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.

It would be a sad day if we British stopped being cynical, but you sometimes wonder whether we overdo it.

I've written this to keep from crying. But I am crying, only the tears won't come.

Feminism as a theoretical enterprise is approached differently by Black women depending on where we are. There are more reformist Black women who tend to use the phrase "Black feminism".

Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance.

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.

I don't fiddle or edit or change while I'm going through that first draft.

There is nothing wrong with having competitive instincts. They are survival instincts.

I don't understand women who try to be glamour queens.

Beatrice. We should think of our family. But. But we must also think of ourselves.