“We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom.”

“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.”

“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”

“Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.”

“Jealousy we understood and thought natural... But envy was a strange, new feeling for us. And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us.”

“To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.”

“God take what He would," she said. And He did, and He did, and He did and then gave her Halle who gave her freedom when it didn't mean a thing.”