“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”

“I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figureout how to see people differentlythan the way we were brought up to.”

“What will people say, you running off to Memphis like you don't have a house to look after?Shug say, Albert. Try to think like you got some sense. Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.Well, say Grady, trying to bring light. A woman can't git a man if peoples talk.Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh. Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh.”

“God is different to us now, after all these years in Africa. More spirit than ever before, and more internal. Most people think he has to look like something or someone- a roofleaf or Christ- but we don't. And not being tied to what God looks like, frees us.”

“Some people don't understand that it is the nature of the eye to have seen forever, and the nature of the mind to recall anything that was ever known.”

“Listen, God love everything you love - and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.You saying God vain? I ast.Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.What it do when it pissed off? I ast.Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”

“Why you like this, huh? Why you always think you have to do things your own way? I ast your mama bout it one time, while you was in jail.What she say? ast Sofia.She say you think your way as good as anybody else's. Plus, it yours.Sofia laugh.”