THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD PEAR TREE QUOTES

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree […] and it seemed to her that the pulses of the springtime were beating like a dirge.”

“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.”

“Janie saw her life a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.”

“The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

“It was a throne. Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”

“She didn’t read books so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.”

“He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring.”

“So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time.”

“It was a weapon against her strength and if it turned out of no significance, still it was a hope that she might fall to dust before the doom came.”

“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.”

“Tea Cake started mashing potatoes and he mashed them too luxurious with a piece of ice added […] She was conscious of the man’s deliberate slow process and enjoyed it. She looked and saw that he had brought her a generous portion of sugar to her soothing and inviting depths. The generous weights of her breasts broke the coopered restraint and the firm nipples were forced out of hiding.”

“The wind came back with triple fury and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

“Tea Cake had forbidden her to pick up any box of roots or read the magic words. That was his, he said. It could bring harm to her. So he took the responsibility and never consulted her about anything.”

“The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.” DOVE CAMERON INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

“Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them. Somehow she couldn’t get hold of them. They rode on her shoulders like thunder and lightning.”

“She didn’t have time to listen nor no way to hear. She merely went on tasting her sweet bubbling memories and sucking her cane. She shook her head from side to side. Memory sifted down on her.”

“Even the grief seemed to belong to some one else. She searched for herself but death was a long way back. So she jumped up and ran on into the night and the way the honey-moon looked down across the heavens.”

“The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room; out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees.”

“The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”

“One day the husband of Mrs. Tony Taylor shot her. It was something about Mr. Taylor, him and his friends raping a colored girl and Tony found out about it. Things lak dat don’t pass in nobody’s house without everybody in de quarters findin’ out. He shot her.”

“Masses of birds were singing their evening songs high up in the trees. Tree frogs were peeping and over everything was hung a weird and lovely silence.”

“It was a weapon against her strength and if it turned out of no significance, still it was a hope that she might fall to dust before the doom came.”

“There was no answer to the knock upon the heart. What she needed was a physical necessity and the dark road was blocked. She sat on the trunk of the fallen pine tree and waited for the morning to come.”

“Ah’m glad, ’cause now Ah ain’t got tuh look back tuh nothing no mo’. Ah’m glad, ’cause Ah love gawdz so mahch Ah don’t want tuh look at nothin’ too purty.”

“Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.” (Chapter 26)

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree […] and it seemed to her that the pulses of the springtime were beating like a dirge.”

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing…”