Sula

“I’m me,” she whispered. “Me.” Nel didn’t know quite what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant. “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me.”

Helene Wright was an impressive woman, at least in Medallion she was. Heavy hair in a bun, dark eyes arched in a perpetual query about other people’s manners. A woman who won all social battles with presence and a conviction of the legitimacy of her authority.

In sorting it all out, he hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free. In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day.

They insisted that all unions between white men and black women be rape; for a black woman to be willing was literally unthinkable. In that way,

“We made a mistake, sir. You see, there wasn’t no sign. We just got in the wrong car, that’s all. Sir.” “We don’t ’low no mistakes on this train. Now git your butt on in there.”

And it was natural that he, after all, became the first one to join Shadrack—Tar Baby and the deweys—on National Suicide Day.

the custard pudding she believed lurked under her mother’s heavy dress,

She thought also of returning to some of her people in Virginia, but to come home dragging three young ones would have to be a step one rung before death for Eva.

Most people said he was half white, but Eva said he was all white. That she knew blood when she saw it, and he didn’t have none.