Nella Larsen

“The trouble with Clare was, not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well.”

“Everything can't be explained by some general biological phrase.”

“She hated to admit that money was the most serious difficulty. Knowing full well that it was important, she nevertheless rebelled at the unalterable truth that it could influence her actions, block her desires. A sordid necessity to be grappled with.”

“Authors do not supply imaginations, they expect their readers to have their own, and to use it”

“To each his own milieu. Enhance what was already in one's possession.”

“Incited. That was it, the guidingprinciple of her life in Copenhagen. She was incited to make an impression, a voluptous impression. She was incited to inflame attention and admiration. She was dressed for it, subtly schooled for it. And after a little while she gave herself up wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired.”

“Somewhere, within her, in a deep recess, crouched discontent. She began to lose confidence in the fullness of her life, the glow began to fade from her conception of it. As the days multiplied, her need of something, something vaguely familiar, but which she could not put a name to and hold for definite examination, became almost intolerable. She went through moments of overwhelming anguish. She felt shut in, trapped.”

“These people yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color, joy of rhythmic motion, naive, spontaneous laughter. Harmony, radiance, and simplicity, all the essentials of spiritual beauty in the race they had marked for destructions.”

“What are friends for, if not to help bear our sins?”

“Children aren't everything. There are other things in the world, thought I admit some people don't seem to suspect it. ”

“I think being a mother is the cruelest thing in the world. ”