Today's clouds can never deny yesterday's beautiful sunset. The inconvenience of today's storms can never turn us from tomorrow's harvest. We plant, we reap, we try because we are human. We hope, we continue. Our soul is rested, but it will have to get up in the morning and start again.

Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (1994)

But he had chosen solitude and the company of other solitary people - opted for it when everybody else had long ago surrendered, because he never wanted to live in the world their way. There was something wrong with the rites. He had wanted another way.

Toni Morrison, Tar Baby (1981)

My task? To find something I loved that did not require me to change my physical habits while allowing me to grow emotionally and intellectually.

Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (1994)

Life is not a problem similar to science or mathematics where solutions can be discerned and tested. Life is a process where people mix and match, fall apart and come back together.

Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (1994)

No, I saw the bible as a literary masterpiece, but literature all the same; and Christianity owed its rules and regulations to politics more than anything else, while filling pews with uncertainty and fear. Substitute the Torah, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, for all the above and the formula worked perfectly. All of the bloodletting and chaos, the devotion and beauty, martyrdom, and even charity could be reduced to a simple formula of politics and fear.

Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (1988)

People like to see a king uncrowned, like to see a thoroughbred racehorse beaten when he's running at the top of his form and has outrun everything in sight. They wanted to see demonstrated right before their eyes that there was no such thing as invincibility, wanted to see that the king, the top dog, the best man, has a flaw, can be beaten like them, is vulnerable like them, can be defeated, unfrocked, uncrowned, knocked down, and thus brought right down to their level.

Ann Petry, The Narrows (1953)

It's easy for the top to be friendly - they are well paid and well benefited for it; the others speak from the heart.

Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (1994)

Tell all the truth but tell it slant.

Emily Dickinson, 1129 (ca. 1868)

A word to the wise is sufficient, but a whole dictionary wouldn't help some fools.

Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (1988)

Angst haben ist eine Teilzeit-Beschäftigung, aber kann keine Ganzzeit-Beschäftigung sein.

Gertrude Stein, Jedermanns Autobiograhie (1937)

There was no sign indicating that a school was near, and children who had to cross the highway did so at a run. A boy had been killed trying to get across the road, and the state of georgia had put up a white wooden cross as a "death" marker for motorists, but had not thought to put up a warning sign.

Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970)

I mean, it is so illogical to think that any system that intended to support life first created 'man.'

Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (1994)

It was nearly always mindless work, and as far as most employers were concerned, it was done by mindless people. Nonpeople rented for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks. It didn't matter.

Octavia Butler, Kindred (1979)

Each day must be spent, in a sense, apart from any other; on each day there would be sun and cheerfulness or rain and sorrow or quiet contemplation of life. Each day must be past, present and future, with dancing and wine-making and drinking and as few regrets as possible. Her future must be the day she lived in.

Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970)

But those were the good girls, the ones who went to church, the ones who wanted husbands and homes and children. And they were absolutely all wrong for Link. The ones who didn't go to church were the ones with the shapely legs and the smoothbrown skins that didn't need any heavy concealing layers of powder, the ones with the artfully curled hair, the ones who didn't want husbands and children and wellkept homes. They wanted boyfriends, an endless succession of boyfriends and a perpetual good time. And they were absolutely all wrong for link too.

Ann Petry, The Narrows (1953)

FRAG NIEMALS NACH DEM WIE! Auf das Wie kommt es nicht an! Das Wie gibt es nicht! Das Wie ist für Narren und Sklaven! Das Wie macht alles klein! Du bist größer als das Wie, das Wie ist dir egal, wenn du es willst, muss dir das Wie folgen!

William Nicholson, Das Lied des Feuers (2002)

It's so ... well ... Christian ... to hate the deed yet love the doer.

Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (1994)

[White folks] is the reason fences was invented. I mean, take before they come here with all they bibles, do you think the Injuns had done hogged propity from one another? No ma'am, they hadn't. They didn't mind letting folks use the grass and the good earth like the lawd intended it should be. Those people over there, you give 'em a chance, they try to take our land, never mind it belong to us. They been that was since hist'ry.

Grange zu Ruth, in: Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970)

It was a silly age, twenty-five; too old for teenage dreaming, too young for settling down. Every corner was a possibility or a dead end.

Toni Morrison, Tar Baby (1981)

She supposed the young men of Link's generation couldn't have manners like Mr. Powther's, though she didn't know why. Wars and atom bombs and the fact that there was so much hate in the world might have something to do with it.

Ann Petry, The Narrows (1953)