“An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.”

“In the cool afternoon the fiend from hell specifically sent to lovers arrived at Janie's ear. Doubt.”

“They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans…So when the bread didn’t rise, and the fish wasn’t quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store.”

“From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.”

“it seems that tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life!”

“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”

“You'se something tuh make uh man forgit to git old and forgit tuh die.”