“Mother to Son
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a'climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now -
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
- Langston Hughes (112)”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." - The Talmud”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Listen baby, Muver love you. Muver not dumb. Listen baby: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.
Thas the alphabet. Twenty- six letters in all. Them letters make up words. Them words everything.”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“I say I drownin' in river. She don't look me like I'm crazy but say, If you just sit there the river gonna rise up drown you! Writing could be the boat carry you to the other side. (97)”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“How that is so I don't know. How Mama and Daddy know me sixteen years and hate me, how a stranger meet me and love me. (131)”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“How is something a memory if you never forgit?”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“I bite my fingernails till they look like disease, pull strips of my skin away. Get Daddy's razor out cabinet. Cut cut cut arm wrist, not trying to die, trying to plug myself back in. (111)”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Is life a hammer to beat me down?”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers: "Grow, Grow".”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Some folks got a light around them that shine for other peoples. I think that maybe some of them was in tunnels, and in that tunnel, maybe the only light they had was inside of them. And then, even long after they escaped that tunnel... They still be shining for everybody else.”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Almost all instruction seems to revolve around language ac-(Jermaine spelling now) "q, a-kwi-si-tion acquisition!" ("What that?" I ask. "You know, to get. Language acquisition, to get some language.")”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“I feel like my blood a giant river swell up inside me and I'm drowning. My head all dark inside. Feel like giant river I never cross in front me now. Ms Rain say, You not writing Precious. I say I drownin' in river. She don't look me like I'm crazy but say, If you just sit there the river gonna rise up drown you! Writing could be the boat to carry you to the other side.”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“I wanna say I am somebody. I wanna say it on subway, TV, movie, LOUD. I see the pink faces in suits look over top of my head. I watch myself disappear in their eyes, their tesses. I talk loud but still I don't exist.”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Show me what's inside the crystal ball. She look at it a long time then say, Ahh Negrita, you don't want to know.”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“One thing I say about Farrakhan and Alice Walker they help me like being black. I wish I wasn't fat but I am. Maybe one day I like that too, who knows.”
― Sapphire, quote from Push
“Not too many men, in his experience, had achieved a great thing, even one. Very few ever achieved more than one, he knew.”
― Larry McMurtry, quote from Streets of Laredo
“I hate it when a woman lets me down. Gives us all a bad name.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Mephisto Club
“I felt like a Jane Austen heroine all of a sudden, confusedly looking on at all the people she loves, their myriad unpredictable couplings and uncouplings. There would be no marriages at the end of this Austen novel, though, no happy endings, no endings at all. Just jokes and friendships and romances and delicious declarations of independence.”
― Julie Powell, quote from Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living
“I’m sorry, what did you say? I’m not fluent in stupid drunk slut”
― Christine Zolendz, quote from Saving Grace
“Instead, it struck him deeply just how much he loved Sin.
And even as he acknowledged that, he realized he felt the emotion on a deeper, less
chaotic level than he had before. He had known he loved Sin for over a year but it had
never felt like such a simple statement of fact for his life before; it had never seemed so
undeniable and yet at the same time without any negativity.
Whereas there had been times before when the love he'd felt for Sin had seemed
almost desperate or painful, now as he hunched over Sin with his fingers grasping Sin's
slack hand, Boyd felt at peace with the knowledge. It was as if a weight were lifted from
his shoulders and he understood that he could be no other way.”
― Ais, quote from The Interludes
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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