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The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created f...more

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

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One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the South today, you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievanc...more

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There is a way that the men speak to women that reminds me too much of Pa. They listen just long enough to issue instructions. They don’t even look at...more

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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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I'm not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable ...more

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If this were a courageous country,it would ask Gloria to lead itsince she is sane and funny and beautiful and smartand the National Leaders we've alwa...more

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Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterica...more

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Sofia the kind of woman no matter what she have in her hand she make it look like a weapon.

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Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful, and lowdown.

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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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But what was good tween us must have been nothing but bodies, she say. Cause I don't know the Albert that don't dance, can't hardly laugh, never talk ...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.