Pheoby's hungry listening helped Janie to tell her story.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.

So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.

No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.

It was the meanest moment of eternity.

They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.

Tain't no use in you cryin' . . . But folks is meant to cry 'bout somethin' or other. Better leave things de way dey is. Youse young yet. No tellin' whut mout happen befo' you die.

He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.

Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.

Please God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah'm is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin', Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattery.

One of the injustices of the world was that it was so easy to make the innocent and caring ones happy with so little.

I always love a side of guacamole with everything.

If any speak ill of thee, fly home to thy own conscience and examine thy heart. If thou art guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

Is it every man and woman's curse to want it all and only get ten percent of it? Or do we ask too much?

There's nothing cheap about loyalty.

Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.

God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.

I hate going to bed. I read scripts, clean, listen to the radio - I've fallen asleep to 'This American Life' more times than I can count!