“It was a fine cry -- loud and long -- but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.”

—Toni Morrison, from Sula (thanks, onesmallsparrow)

“When you gone get married? You need to have some babies. It'll settle you...Ain't no woman got no business floatin' around without no man." Sula replies: "I don't want to make somebody else. I want to make myself”

—Sula by Toni Morrison (p. 92)

“Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.”

—Toni Morrison

“In a way, her strangeness, her naivete, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings: had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for And like any artist with no art form, [Sula] became dangerous.”

—Toni Morrison, Sula

“¦she lived out her days exploring her own thoughts and emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody unless their pleasure pleased her. As willing to feel pain as to give pain, to feel pleasure as to give pleasure, hers was an experimental life… — Toni Morrison, Sula”

—

“It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both.”

—Toni Morrison, Sula

“Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.”

—Sula, Toni Morrison. 

“¦but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else’s. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain’t that something? A secondhand lonely.”

—Sula, Toni Morrison

“The loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat. It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and no top, just circles and circles of sorrow”

—Sula by Toni Morrison

“In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous. ”

—Toni Morrison
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