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When I began thinking, in the late Seventies, about writing the novel that would become The Color Purple, I felt the greatest need to do so surrounded by Nature.
I rented a one room cottage that faced a meadow and whose backyard was an apple orchard. A towering linden tree offered shade. Seeking guidance, I spent days at the river and among the redwoods. Nights looking at the stars. This was the experience of Heaven in Nature I had so missed
You got to fight. You got to fight. But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.
Beat her. I say.
“Hard times” is a phrase the English love to use, when speaking of Africa. And it is easy to forget that Africa’s “hard times” were made harder by them. Millions and millions of Africans were captured and sold into slavery—you and me, Celie! And whole cities were destroyed by slave catching wars.
Did I mention my first sight of the African coast? Something struck in me, in my soul, Celie, like a large bell, and I just vibrated. Corrine and Samuel felt the same. And we kneeled down right on deck and gave thanks to God for letting us see the land for which our mothers and fathers cried—and lived and died—to see again.
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.
You was all rotten children, I say. You made my life a hell on earth. And your daddy here ain’t dead horse’s shit.
Did I ast him to come? Do I care whether he sweet or not? Will it make any difference in the way he grow up to treat me what I think?
black people did not truly admire blackskinned black people like herself, and especially did not admire blackskinned black women. They bleach their faces, she said. They fry their hair. They try to look naked.
Is this life or not? I be so calm. If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.
