"I know this to be true, and yet it remains difficult to imagine."
"It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man."
"She look like she ain't long for this world but dressed well for the next."
"First time somebody made something and name it after me."
"And we kneeled down right on deck and gave thanks to God for letting us see the land for which our mothers and fathers cried - and lived and died - to see again."
"We know a roofleaf is not Jesus Christ, but in its own humble way, is it not God?"
"Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly."
"Only the sky above us do we hold in common. I look at it often as if, somehow, reflected from its immensities, I will one day find myself gazing into your eyes."
"There is so much we don't understand. And so much unhappiness comes because of that."
"Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful, and lowdown."
"But if God love me, Celie, I don't have to do all that. Unless I want to. There's a lot of other things I can do that I speck God likes."
"Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not to find God."
"God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it."
"God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it."
"My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all."
"You saying God vain? I ast. Naw, she say. Not vain, just waiting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it... People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back."
"Try to think like you got some sense. Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me."
"Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us laugh sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh. Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh."
"I curse you, I say. What that mean? he say. I say, Until you do right by me, everything you touch will crumble... Until you do right by me, I say, everything you even dream about will fail. I give it to him straight, just like it come to me. And it seem to come to me from the trees."
"I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here."
"I smoke when I want to talk to God. I smoke when I want to make love. Lately I feel like me and God make love just fine anyhow. Whether I smoke reefer or not."
"Our days are fuller than ever, our sojourn in England already a dream. But all things look brighter because I have a loving soul to share them with."
"I don't say nothing. I pray to die, just so I don't never have to speak."
"Celie, I say, happiness was just a trick in your case. Just cause you never had any before Shug, you thought it was time to have some, and that it was gon last. Even thought you had the trees with you. The whole earth. The stars. But look at you. When Shug left, happiness desert."
"But now Shug's six months is come and gone and she ain't come back. And I try to teach my heart not to want nothing it can't have."
"Yeah son, I tell him. THey had a lot of love to give. But I needed love plus understanding. They run a little short of that."
"Sometimes I feel mad at her. Feel like I could scratch her hair right off her head. But then I think, Shug got a right to live too. She got a right to look over the world in whatever company she choose. Just cause I love her don't take away none of her rights."
"Who am I to tell her who to love? My job just to love her good and true myself."
"And I thank God he let me gain understanding enough to know love can't be halted just cause some peoples moan and groan. It don't surprise me you love Shug Avery, he say. I Have love Shug Avery all my life."
"Hard not to love Shug, I say. She know how to love somebody back."
"I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love."
"If she come, I be happy. If she don't, I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn."
"But I don't think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt."
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