“Most people fight with their fists. But I fight with my legs. I fight to stay, but they fight to run. Luckily for them, I don't fight very hard.”

“You got to fight them, Celie, she say. I can't do it for you.You got to fight them for yourself.I don't say nothing. I think bout Nettie, dead. She fight, she run away. What good it do? I don't fight, I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive.”

“I have a fierce will to live. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others - and I am one of those - never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end.”

“I have just lost my reason for fighting so hard. How do I go on now, without my thing to fight for?' And he whispered into my ear, he said: 'Maybe it's time to stop fighting.”

“I'm not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here.”

“I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir--but I do have a choice of how I do it. If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight. If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I who am not a very brave man will have made them a little braver.”