Native Stranger Quotes

“they lost sight of the dolphins, Clare pointed out the pink horseshoe of Castle Pinckney on Shute’s Folly, the grey walls of Fort Sumter, and the green oasis of their destination in the distance.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“And the white rose weeps, ‘He is late.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Clare paused to bury her nose in a Jaune Desprez, and the words of Tennyson’s Maud bubbled from her lips in a whisper: “He is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, ‘He is near, he is near;”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Language of Flowers that Mama had taught her. White roses meant “secrecy and silence,” and pink roses meant “perfect happiness.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“baby is God’s opinion that life should go on. — Carl Sandburg, Remembrance Rock (1948)”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love! — Virgil, Eclogue X (37 B.C.)”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“The longer I live, the more I am convinced that God is truly merciful. We all must suffer. But in the scope of eternity, our suffering will be brief and our joy will be boundless”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“O Love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul thro’ My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“But I will give you anything you want…”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“I think…cowardice is also a sin. I think I wronged both of you more by refusing.” Father Joseph closed his eyes. “A few years ago, our Holy Father said: ‘Far be it from us to dare to set bounds to the boundless mercy of God.’ It reminded me of the Revelations of Juliana of Norwich: ‘His love excuseth us, and of His great courtesy He doth away all our blame, and beholdeth us with compassion and pity…’ I think they mean intentions count, and God forgives us when we falter.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Every year that passes, the Devil gives us more opportunities to make terrible mistakes, to make choices we’ll regret for the rest of our lives.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“sin still has consequences.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Took me years to realize she was right. If we let our lives stop because of what they done to us, they win,”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“There’s this Gullah proverb my mother taught me: ‘If’n you hold onto your mad, it will kill all your”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Cato tonight had asked them to vow “till death or distance do you part.” No slave had the power to promise forever.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“— Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861)”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Why does the slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of violence?”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Slaves are men and women and children first, David,” Uncle Joseph insisted. “Slavery is a condition, and it is temporary. You know what happened at Harper’s Ferry, what happened in Haiti—what nearly happened here in Charleston. Slavery is an abomination, and God will not allow it to continue. Country after country has seen that and abolished it already:”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Bishop should object to catechumens learning to read. Then David remembered: one of Uncle Joseph’s Colleton County missions consisted of negro parishioners—slaves who worshipped at a remote church called St. James the Greater. “Do you mean: even at the St. James mission?” Now Uncle Joseph grinned. “Especially at the St. James mission.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Uncle Joseph shrugged. “The meaning of ‘Canaan’ is obscure. But it’s irrelevant. There is no Biblical or classical basis whatsoever for connecting the ‘curse of Ham’ with blackness. Noah cursed Ham’s son Canaan. Dark-skinned Africans are the descendants of Ham’s son Cush, who wasn’t cursed at all. In the Middle Ages,”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Slaves are men and women and children first, David,” Uncle Joseph insisted. “Slavery is a condition,”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“tax. They cannot vote, and they have a curfew. Imagine what that kind of humiliation does to a person: to be treated like a perpetual child, like a prisoner always on parole but never pardoned. If one or two of them run screaming through the streets, I can hardly blame them. Slavery and submission are no one’s natural state. Man walks on two legs, not four.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“No matter his age, no matter how many generations his family has been free, every free colored person is required by law to attach himself to a white guardian. Every free colored person is also forced to pay an annual capitation”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Not all of our colored lunatics are slaves. Some are free.” “In this city,” Uncle Joseph declared, “no man or woman of color is truly free.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“A few decades ago, it was Benjamin Rush claiming ‘Negritude’ was a form of leprosy. Now anyone who resists slavery must have a disease.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Samuel Cartwright, of Louisiana?”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“who is madder: the ‘master’ who claims another man is his property, or the ‘slave’ who seizes his ‘unalienable Right’ to ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness’?”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“Dr. Thomas G. Prioleau, Dean of the Medical College of South Carolina, to the state legislature (1824)”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? — Robert Browning, “Andrea del Sarto” (1855)”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger

“apologize sincerely and profusely for the way this must look, sir. You have every right to demand that I marry your daughter, but—” Edward was gripping his glass so hard he feared it might shatter in his hand. “Did you fuck her?” The boy winced as if Edward had slapped him. Oh, Edward liked making him squirm. “No, sir. I swear to you on her mother’s grave: I did not touch your daughter. Not even as a physician. It was a verbal consultation, nothing more.”
― Elizabeth Bell, Native Stranger