The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

Can anything be more boring than an upper-class Englishman? she said. They remind one of bloody mushrooms.

the Cherokee Indians who lived in Georgia were forced to leave their homes and walk, through the snow, to resettlement camps

And she could erase herself, her spirit, with a swiftness that truly startled, when she knew the people around her could not respect it.

A TREATISE ON FUTILITY IN THE TROPICS.

Sometimes I feel our position is like that of flies on an elephant’s hide.

and flashed her famous medal around the room, do you realize King Leopold cut the hands off workers who, in the opinion of his plantation overseers, did not fulfill their rubber quota?

There’s something in all of us that wants a medal for what we have done.

Oh, I loved him as a brother and respected him as a friend, but Celie, I love him bodily, as a man! I love his walk, his size, his shape, his smell, the kinkiness of his hair. I love the very texture of his palms. The pink of his inner lip. I love his big nose. I love his brows. I love his feet. And I love his dear eyes in which the vulnerability and beauty of his soul can be plainly read.

He is a very sensitive soul who hears what isn’t said as clearly as what is.

the female initiation ceremony too, she said.

Tashi was happy that the initiation ceremony isn’t done in Europe or America, said Olivia. That makes it even more valuable to her.

But all things look brighter because I have a loving soul to share them with.

And not being tied to what God looks like, frees us.

Celie, I say, happiness was just a trick in your case. Just cause you never had any before Shug, you thought it was time to have some, and that it was gon last. Even thought you had the trees

with you. The whole earth. The stars. But look at you. When Shug left, happiness desert.

How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe, like God, you changed into something different that I’ll have to speak to in a different way, but you not dead to me Nettie. And never will be. Sometime when I git tired of talking to myself I talk to you.

And I try to teach my heart not to want nothing it can’t have.

They had a lot of love to give. But I needed love plus understanding. They run a little short of that.

Just cause I love her don’t take away none of her rights.

Who am I to tell her who to love? My job just to love her good and true myself.

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout

the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.