Bernice L. McFadden Quotes
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In 1922 everything changed again. The Eskimo pie was invented; James Joyce's Ulysses was printed in Paris; snow fell on Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Babe Ruth signed a three-year contract with the New York Yankees; Eugene O'Neill was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Frederick Douglass's home was dedicated as a national shrine; former heavyweight champion of the world Jack Johnson invented the wrench...
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The next day the stock market crashed. Hemmingway didn’t quite understand what it all meant, but from the way the white people in town were running around like chickens without heads, she took it as an omen.
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That’s who we were, wartorn meadows on the verge of new growth.
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Don't you know sugar is brown first? White folks couldn't stand the fact that something so sweet shared the same color as the people who cut the cane, slopped the hogs and picked the cotton. So they bleached it to resemble them, and now they done gone and fooled everybody. You included.
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When things were bad, time had a habit of taking its time to pass, making sure you experienced every painful moment. When things were good and contentment abundant, time moved like the wind, hurrying precious moments along and forcing things that normally require nurturing to grow and forge quickly.
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For many years, Tass's life was like an echo.
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I write to breathe life back into memory.
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Scars are proof of survival, they shouldn’t be hidden—it’s a story someone may need to see in order to believe that beyond their pain and suffering, there is healing.
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Only the Strong is a lushly atmospheric and passionately written piece of work, bursting with colorful characters that shine on every page.
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I’m sorry that your journey into my life was such that you had to endure so much suffering. But if that is the road God had you travel in order for our paths to cross, then we have no choice but to accept the purpose it has served and be grateful for it.
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It was in his high school music class that he first became acquainted with a battered caramel-colored Stella Parlor. When Harlan raked his fingers over the six strings, his entire body vibrated. He'd never thought of himself as incomplete - one half of something he could name - but there it was, the very thing that had been missing from his young life.
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Keeping her man well fed and fucked are number one priorities that she can’t slack on because you can never know when a woman dressed to the nines with a blond wig, long legs and a high fat ass that should have been equal to you in almost every way may decide to hop on the first southbound Greyhound and end up looking at you through whispering letters on a dusty storefront window.
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Over time her inhibitions took shelter in the corner of the room and Easter allowed the music to swallow her.
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She had looked in the mirror a million times and only saw the brown of her skin and not the magic flowing beneath it.
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I write to breath life back into memory to remind African-Americans of our rich and textured history. I also see myself as a "root," and for me the "fierce winds" include the marginalization-the downright segregation-of literature written by people of color.
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She swung like a pendulum, ticking away the seconds until she would be dead.
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There’s a little bit of hooker in every woman. A little bit of hooker and a little bit of God.
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We forget about the people we love sometimes.
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But grief let loose from a woman who lost a child—that was the worst type of grief of all.
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Anger eats up years faster than happiness, chile. You better get on with your living and forget ’bout that hurt.
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Writing kept her sane. Kept her form spinning out of control. Kept her tongue still whenever some white person spoke down to her. She had to write, it was the only thing that was completely hers, that she could look forward to at the end of her long day.
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Prison had a way of draining people of their hope and humanity. But Harlan didn't have to worry about that because he'd gone in empty.
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Sugar ain’t spoiled, she just a little bruised, is all. Bruises can heal and fade away to nothing.
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You can't expect a child not to become a product of his environment. If you're a drinker, you'll raise a drunk. If you're a single mother, traipsing men in and out of your bedroom in front of your girl child - mark my words, in time she'll claim a corner and charge money for what you gave away for free. Kings and queens raise princes and princesses. That's just the way it is.