Jonathan Odell Quotes

Calming ain't curing, is it, girl?

When you got a question," Polly said before Granada could ask, "first be silent. Look around you. Let creation speak the truth to you." She

Sometimes you got to lie on the outside to keep your voice loud on the inside. We don't owe the master the truth. He owes us. Nothing comes from the master. He is the thief in the night. He steals it all. And every time we have to say 'yes sir' and 'no sir,' he steals some more. But we can survive it, if we stay loud in here," she said, throwing a fist hard against her breast.

They all watched silently as she walked toward her cabin, but when she got to the doorway she stopped and turned around. She stood for a moment with her chin lifted and her eyes closed. What on earth was she doing? Granada wondered.

Master says the cholera is not a quality disease. The highborn don't come down with such.

Creation is filled with soul-sick folks, colored and white, never knowing where they belong. They tangle everybody else up in their grief.

When God wants to punish us, he gives us just ourselves to care for.

It shames me to admit that in the white-defined society in which I was raised, blacks were considered merely background. This was worse than physical segregation. This was psychological segregation. It wasn't that we were taught not to associate with blacks: close association was unavoidable. Instead, we were taught to see half the population not as individuals but as functionaries - maids, yardmen, etc.

That's the way it is with God, don't you reckon? He always around somewheres, if you can see His face or not. He's out there watching through the dark. Sometimes that's got to be enough, I suppose. Knowing He sees us even if we can't see Him back." -- Levi Snow

Granada had never been on the water before and she marveled at how the creek was a living thing with a will of its own, like an untamed horse challenging her to ride upon its back.

Look up, Granada. Look to your people. We as beautiful and as plentiful as them stars knitted together in heaven. We just forgot. Somebody's got to remember for us all.

You're soul sick is what you are," Polly said. "And you can stomp your little footsie all you want to, but you ain't going to get well until you remember. And you can't remember until you learn to see.

You don't have no idea who you are. And if you don't know who you are," Polly continued, "you can't know nothing about where you beee-long.

Calming ain't curing, is it, girl?" the woman asked aloud. "Keeping you hushed might keep me out of jail, but sure as the world, calming ain't curing.

Woman is the way God says yes in this here world. He put the promise on us. The woman carries 'In the beginning' in her body. And every month God will use your blood to wash the moon so the beginning time can begin again. When you get to be a woman you got to carry the promise with respect, and honor all the mothers who passed it down to us.

Just remember this, girl, the water you hate is the water that's going to drown you.