“I have fought and kicked and fasted and prayed and cursed and cried myself to the point of existing.”

“He beat me like he beat the children. Cept he don't never hardly beat them. He say, Celie, git the belt. The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks. It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man.”

“Any God I ever found in church, I brought in myself.”

“First time I think about the world.What the world got to do with anything, I think. Then I see myself sitting there quilting tween Shug Avery and Mr ——. Us three set together gainst Tobias and his fly speck box of chocolate. For the first time in my life, I feel just right.”

“I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.”

“It has been proved that the land can exist without the country - and be better for it; it has not been proved that the country can live without the land.”

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”