Quicksand Quotes

“Somewhere, within her, in a deep recess, crouched discontent. She began to lose confidence in the fullness of her life, the glow began to fade from her conception of it. As the days multiplied, her need of something, something vaguely familiar, but which she could not put a name to and hold for definite examination, became almost intolerable. She went through moments of overwhelming anguish. She felt shut in, trapped.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“These people yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color, joy of rhythmic motion, naive, spontaneous laughter. Harmony, radiance, and simplicity, all the essentials of spiritual beauty in the race they had marked for destructions.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“But there was, she knew, something else. Happiness, she supposed. Whatever that might be. What, exactly, she wondered, was happiness. Very positively she wanted it.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“To each his own milieu. Enhance what was already in one's possession.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“Incited. That was it, the guidingprinciple of her life in Copenhagen. She was incited to make an impression, a voluptous impression. She was incited to inflame attention and admiration. She was dressed for it, subtly schooled for it. And after a little while she gave herself up wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“Faith was really quite easy. One had only to yield. To ask no questions. The more weary, the more weak, she became, the easier it was. Her religion was to her a kind of protective coloring, shielding her from the cruel light of an unbearable reality.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“She could neither conform nor be happy in her unconformity. This she saw clearly now, and with cold anger at all the past futile effort. What a waste!”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“In some strange way she was able to ignore the atmosphere of self-satisfaction which poured from him like gas from a leaking pipe.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“Almost she wished she could die. Not quite. It wasn’t that she was afraid of death, which had, she thought, its picturesque aspects. It was rather that she knew she would not die. And death, after the debacle, would but intensify its absurdity. Also, it would reduce her, Helga Crane, to unimportance, to nothingness. Even in her unhappy present state, that did not appeal to her.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“And hardly had she left her bed and become able to walk again without pain, hardly had the children returned from the houses of the neighbors, when she began to have her fifth child.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“The far-off interest of tears.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“Frankly the question came to this: what was the matter with her? Was there, without her knowing it, some peculiar lack in her? Absurd. But she began to have a feeling of discouragement and hopelessness. Why couldn't she be happy, content, somewhere Other people managed, somehow, to be. To put it plainly, didn't she know how? Was she incapable of it?”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“And this, Helga decided, was what ailed the whole Negro race in America, this fatuous belief in the white man’s God, this childlike trust in full compensation for all woes and privations in “kingdom come.” Sary Jones’s absolute conviction, “In de nex’ worl’ we’s all recompense’,” came back to her. And ten million souls were as sure of it as was Sary. How the white man’s God must laugh at the great joke he had played on them! Bound them to slavery, then to poverty and insult, and made them bear it unresistingly, uncomplainingly almost, by sweet promises of mansions in the sky by and by.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“And she was interesting, an odd confusion of wit and intense earnestness; a vivid and remarkable person.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“Marriage—that means children, to me. And why add more suffering to the world? Why add any more unwanted, tortured Negroes to America? Why do Negroes have children? Surely it must be sinful. Think of the awfulness of being responsible for the giving of life to creatures doomed to endure such wounds to the flesh, such wounds to the spirit, as Negroes have to endure.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“Always she had wanted, not money, but the things which money could give, leisure, attention, beautiful surroundings. Things. Things. Things.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“While she still felt for the girl envious admiration, that feeling was now augmented by another, a more primitive emotion. She forgot the garish crowded room. She forgot her friends. She saw only two figures, closely clinging. She felt her heart throbbing. She felt the room receding. She went out the door.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“He responded seriously that he too thought it a pleasure, and added: 'You haven't changed. You're still seeking for something, I think.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“The possibility of alleviating her burdens by a greater faith became lodged in her mind. She gave herself up to it. It did help. And the beauty of leaning on the wisdom of God, of trusting, gave her a queer sort of satisfaction. Faith was really quite easy. One had only to yield. To ask no questions. The more weary, the more weak, she became, the easier it was. Her religion was to her a kind of protective coloring, shielding her from the cruel light of an unbearable reality.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“There were, so she had been given to understand, things in the matrimonial state that were of necessity entirely too repulsive for a lady of delicate and sensitive nature to submit to.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“She carried herself as queens are reputed to bear themselves, and probably do not.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“The spot where Helga Crane sat was a small oasis in a desert of darkness.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand

“Helga Crane was silent, feeling a mystifying yearning which sang and throbbed in her.”
― Nella Larsen, Quicksand