Song of Solomon

by Toni Morrison

Jumping from the roof of Mercy was the most interesting thing he had done. None of them had suspected he had it in him. Just goes to show, they murmured to each other, you never really do know about people.

It was becoming a habit—this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had.

Let me tell you right now the one important thing you’ll ever need to know: Own things. And let the things you own own other things. Then you’ll own yourself and other people too. Starting Monday, I’m going to teach you how.”

She could not get his love (and the possibility that he did not think of her at all was intolerable), so she settled for his fear.

Bryn Mawr had done what a four-year dose of liberal education was designed to do: unfit her for eighty percent of the useful work of the world.

Perhaps that’s what all human relationships boiled down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?

“I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ’em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more.”