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Dear Nettie, I don't write to God no more, I write to you.

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All her young life she has tried to please her father, never quite realizing that, as a girl, she never could.

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Naw, I say. Mr ____, can tell you, I don't like it at all. What is it to like? He git up on you, heist your nightgown round your waist, plunge in. Mos...more

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He say, Celie, tell me the truth. You don't like me cause I'm a man?I blow my nose. take off they pants, I say, and men look like frogs to me. No matt...more

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A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something. What can she become? I asked. Why, she said, the mother of his children. B...more

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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...more

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Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you t...more

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It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how I come to know trees fear man.