The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.

You ought to bash Mr —— head open, she say. Think bout heaven later.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here.

When it come to what folks do together with they bodies, he say, anybody’s guess is as good as mine.

The more I wonder, he say, the more I love. And people start to love you back,