Quotes from Passing

Nella Larsen ·  122 pages

Rating: (14.1K votes)


“The trouble with Clare was, not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didn’t matter, if no one knew.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“Everything can't be explained by some general biological phrase.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“I feel like the oldest person in the world with the longest stretch of life before me.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“Well, what of it? If sex isn’t a joke, what is it”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing



“And yet she hadn't the air of a woman whose life had been touched by uncertainty or suffering. Pain, fear, and grief were things that left their mark on people. Even love, that exquisite torturing emotion, left its subtle traces on the countenance.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“She isn't stupid. She's intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn't made the mistake of being born a Negro.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“But she did not look the future in the face. She wanted to feel nothing, to think nothing; simply to believe that it was all silly invention on her part. Yet she could not. Not quite.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“She wished to find out about this hazardous business of “passing,” this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“I'm not such an idiot that I don't realize that if a man calls me a nigger it's his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing



“The trouble with Clare was not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“Money's awfully nice to have. In
fact, all things considered, I think, 'Rene, that
it's even worth the price.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“she regarded with an astonishment that had in it a mild degree of amusement the violence of the feelings which it stirred in her.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“She laughed and the ringing bells in her laugh had a hard metallic sound.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


About the author

Nella Larsen
Born place: in Chicago, Illinois, The United States
Born date April 13, 1891
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