Camille > Camille's Quotes

“There are women who have forgotten that to be a woman doesn't simply mean humiliation, doesn't simply mean bitterness. I haven't forgotten it yet...I'm not going to forget it.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up the flowers, wind, water, a big rock.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“Once it was easy to know who were my people...

I do not believe our wants have made all our lies holy.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“If your house ain't in order, you ain't in order. It is so much easier to be out there than in here.”
― Toni Cade Bambara

“You have a fullness you need to bring out. It's not an emptiness you need to cover up with things.”
― Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments

“I don't give a damn if there's any hope for them or not. But I know that I am not about to be bugged by any more white jokers who still can't figure out whether I'm human or not. If they don't know, baby, sad on them, and I hope they drop dead slowly, in great pain.”
― James Baldwin, Another Country

“Beware of crossing your arms in the sterile attitude of the spectator, because life is not a spectacle, because a a sea of sorrows is not a proscenium, because a man who screams is not a dancing bear.”
― Aimé Césaire

“You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn -- by practice and careful contemplation -- the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-- carefully. And f you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges; the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it.

How do you know you have graduated? You don't.”
― Toni Morrison

“Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Not all speed is movement.”
― Toni Cade Bambara

“When all else fails, don't take it in silence: scream like hell, scream like Jericho was tumbling down, serenaded by a brace of trombones, scream”
― Dambudzo Marechera

“Dammit, white folk are always giving orders, it's a habit with them. Why didn't you make an excuse? You're black and living in the South-- did you forget how to lie?”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“You been gone too long, Sula.

Not too long, but maybe too far.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right-- that his judgment and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Hagar, don't. It's a bad word, 'belong'. Especially when you put it with somebody you love.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“A man is not a tree'...If we remain where we start from we will neither grow nor flourish.”
― June Jordan

“Once us feel loved by God, us do the best us can to please him with what us like.”
― Alice Walker

“He say to tell the truth, Shug act more manly than most men. I mean she upright, honest. Speak her mind and the devil take the hindmost, he say. You know Shug will fight, he say. Just like Sofia. She bound to live her life and be herself no matter what.”
― Alice Walker

“Then he say something that really surprise me cause it so thoughtful and common sense. When it come to what folks do together with they bodies, he say, anybody's guess is as good as mine. But when you talk about love I don't have to guess. I have love and I have been love. And I thank God he let me gain understanding enough to know love can't be halted just cause some peoples moan and groan.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“Don't make your daughter feel like she got to lay with who you want her to lay with, like you're some kind of pimp.”
― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

“But she would not break her discipline to comfort herself in a shallow way. Would no more break discipline with her Self than she would her covenant with God.”
― Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters

“You said once, he said, that you wanted to grow. Isn't that always frightening? Doesn't it always hurt?”
― James Baldwin, Another Country

“With such foundations a kingdom must in time sway and fall.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk