Once the people understood the boundaries and nature of his madness, they could fit him, so to speak, into the scheme of things.

“Well, don’t let your mouth start nothing that your ass can’t stand. When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.” “I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.”

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

So soon. So soon. She hadn’t even begun the trip back. Back to her grandmother’s house in the city where the red shutters glowed, and already she had been called “gal.”

“Me,” she murmured. And then, sinking deeper into the quilts, “I want…I want to be…wonderful. Oh, Jesus, make me wonderful.”

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.

“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.”

Eva said yes, but inside she disagreed and remained convinced that Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested.

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