Buying Quotes

Wrigley is a great business, but that doesn't solve the problem. Buying great businesses at advantageous prices is very tough. ~ Charlie Munger

He had to do it in secret. He didn't want people to think he was buying forgiveness or understanding. Those two things should not be for sale, at any price. ~ Barry Lyga

Outperforming the majority of investors requires doing what they are not doing. Buying when others have despaired, and selling when they are full of hope, takes fortitude. ~ John Templeton

I don't want to tell you what to buy. I just want to help you think about why you're buying it. ~ Alexa Von Tobel

Book buying is a relationship activity, and you need a means to develop relationships with readers and new fans of your work ~ Barb Drozdowich

I hate lending, or borrowing - if you want me to read a book, tell me about it, or buy me a copy outright. Your loaned edition sits in my house like a real grievance. And in lieu of lending books, I buy extra copies of those I want to give away, which gives me the added pleasure of buying books I love again and again.
Jonathan Lethem ~ Leah Price

Hades will be here in twenty minutes," Apollo announced from somewhere way too close to the bed. "Either speed this up or pick it up later, kids."
"Oh my gods," I whispered, horrified.
"Oh, and I hope you two are being responsible," Apollo added.
And then he was gone. There was a muffled, hoarse shout from a room nearby.
"Damn him," Aiden muttered, dropping his head onto my shoulder. He shuddered. "Damn him to the Underworld and back again."
My cheeks burned. "A bell - the first chance we get, we are buying him a bell. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

No man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily - or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play. ~ Edwin Lefevre

Country fans need to support country music by buying albums and concert tickets for traditional artists or the music will just fade away. And that would be really sad. ~ George Jones

If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I'm living my life, not buying a lifestyle. ~ Barbara Kruger

I was raised in California, so this whole New York winter thing is completely new for me. I've already justified buying seven coats! ~ Blake Lively

Im thinking of buying a monkey. Then I think, Why stop at one? I don't like being limited in that way. Therefore, I'm considering a platton of monkeys, so that people will look at me and see how mellow and well-adjusted I am compared to these monkeys throwing feces around. ~ Robert Downey, Jr.

The first lesson of branding: memorability. It's very difficult buying something you can't remember. ~ John Hegarty

Large-caps were safe in 1996, '97, '98. Everybody was buying index funds and Nifty Fifty funds. As long as money was pouring in, it was great. ~ Louis Navellier

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it ~ James Bryce

The way Americans tend to buy things: A person who has $20 will buy something for $40 if it's marked down from $100. ~ Clifford Cohen

I just like artist-driven projects, but for artists themselves: artist spaces, artist mentor programs, and artists buying buildings and making lofts. Doing whatever we can do. Because at the end of the day, I really think that we as a community only have each other. ~ Mark Bradford

Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us - no walking around National Trust properties or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful: dying in mines and slums without literacy or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor - that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better later. We live now - for our own instant hot, fast treats, to pep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. ~ Caitlin Moran

Satan was seen buying a cafe au lait of Friday the thirteenth in the year of the dog. He was wearing a Mexican wrestling mask and a monocle on a gold chain the color of the sun. The lights of the casino filled his good eye. Our days are numbered, our weeks are fading away. ~ Michael Bible

There was no doubt in my mind that the man next to me was the same one who had been in my visions for the last six years. He was real, and he was at Luke's buying a whiskey? I almost felt cheated. For so long, I wondered what this vision was all about, feeling that it held some deeper meaning I would someday grasp. Yet, here I was at some seedy bar and the man in my dreams shows up and orders a whiskey. Now what? Save him from dying of inebriation? ~ L.J. Kentowski

We all get a little rush of excitement at the prospect of buying a brand-new outfit for a first date, but this is not the time. You're much better off wearing clothes, shoes especially, that you've already tested. ~ Nina Garcia

Buying, borrowing, or stealing the book is the easy part. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Only desperate and corrupt politicians can use rigging, thuggery, vote buying, violence, trouble, assault, propaganda and lies to win an election and take over power by force. ~ Bamigboye Olurotimi

Although gold and silver are not by nature money, money is by nature gold and silver. ~ Karl Marx

They had gathered at Eastcheap to wait. At this time of day, the marketplace ought to have been thronged with people looking for bargains, moving from stall to stall, examining the fresh fish, choosing the plumpest hens, buying candles and pepper and needles. The stalls were open, but the fishmongers and cordwainers and butchers were doing no business, despite the growing crowd. The sun was hot, flies were thick, and the odors pungent; no one complained, though. They talked and gossiped among themselves, strangers soon becoming friends, for the normally fractious and outspoken Londoners had forgotten their differences, at least for a day, united in a common purpose and determined to revel in their triumph, for they were pragmatic enough to understand this might be their only one. Now they joked and swapped rumors and waited with uncommon patience, and at last they heard a cry, swiftly picked up and echoed across the marketplace: She is coming! ~ Sharon Kay Penman

Every day, families in the United States face the stark choice between a roof over their heads and food on the table. Buying health insurance, owning a home, and saving up for college are just too far out of their reach. ~ Chris Van Hollen

I have no one to blame for the construction for myself, of course, but I'm always surprised and slightly sulky when I realize people are buying the whole thing. ~ Jonathan Lethem

Guess what, Callie? Love isn't safe. It's messed up and crazy and it hurts like hell. But why would you want anything less than what we had? Jesus, what we had - it was more than love. It was…Dammit. Why do I have to explain this to you? I'm empty without you, and no other woman, no friend or brother - no one can take your place. You're part of me. And I'm sorry but I'm not buying that you've moved on. We messed up, and we got lost, but I will be damned if I accept that you'd rather have some boring, bland, safe relationship than me. ~ Erika Kelly

We Don't Need to Leave Yet, Do We? Or, Yes We Do

One kind of person when catching a train always wants to allow an hour to cover the ten-block trip to the terminus,
And the other kind looks at them as if they were verminous,
And the second kind says that five minutes is plenty and will even leave one minute over for buying the tickets,
And the first kind looks at them as if they had cerebral rickets.
One kind when theater-bound sups lightly at six and hastens off to the play,
And indeed I know one such person who is so such that it frequently arrives in time for the last act of the matinee,
And the other kind sits down at eight to a meal that is positively sumptuous,
Observing cynically that an eight-thirty curtain never rises till eight-forty, an observation which is less cynical than bumptious.
And what the first kind, sitting uncomfortably in the waiting room while the train is made up in the yards, can never understand,
Is the injustice of the second kind's reaching their scat just as the train moves out, just as they had planned,
And what the second kind cannot understand as they stumble over the first kind's heel just as the footlights flash on at last
Is that the first kind doesn't feel the least bit foolish at having entered the theater before the cast.
Oh, the first kind always wants to start now and the second kind always wants to tarry,
Which wouldn't make any difference, except ~ Ogden Nash

There are a set of men who go about making purchases upon credit, and buying estates they have not wherewithal to pay for; and having done this, their next step is to fill the newspapers with paragraphs of the scarcity of money and the necessity of a paper emission, then to have a legal tender under the pretense of supporting its credit, and when out, to depreciate it as fast as they can, get a deal of it for a little price, and cheat their creditors; and this is the concise history of paper money schemes. ~ Thomas Paine

All these polo-necked wankers from grammar schools were going out and buying songs like 'San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)'. Flowers in your hair? Do me a f**king favour.
[...]
Who gave a dog's arse about what people were doing in San Francisco, anyway? The only flowers anyone saw in Aston were the ones they threw in the hole after you when you croaked it at the age of fifty-three 'cos you'd worked yourself to death.
I hated those hippy-dippy songs, man.
Really hated them. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

My idea of baking is buying a ready-make cake mix and throwing in an egg. ~ Cilla Black

The primary factor that enables our government to peddle economic snake oil is the dollar's unique role as the world's reserve currency, and our creditors' willingness to preserve its status. By buying up dollars and loaning them back to us through Treasury debt, productive countries give American politicians cart blanche to play Santa Claus. ~ Peter Schiff

1. Investors give fund managers money at the wrong time. Now that you've had some time to read this book and understand the importance of buying stocks during fear cycles and holding during greed cycles, this first indicator should make sense. To understand this principle, imagine that you're the fund manager of a $100 billion investment fund. When the stock market crashes and you're able to purchase severely undervalued businesses with minimal debt, not only do you lack funds to invest, but all your resources are being depleted by scared investors. Instead of receiving money to buy the great deals, your investors are selling their shares in the fund and you don't have the capacity to take advantage of the market behavior. This reason alone severely handicaps fund managers as they attempt to beat the market. ~ Preston G. Pysh

Life is wonderful and strange...and it's also absolutely mundane and tiresome. It's hilarious and it's deadening. It's a big, screwed-up morass of beauty and change and fear and all our lives we oscillate between awe and tedium. I think stories are the place to explore that inherent weirdness; that movement from the fantastic to the prosaic that is life....

What interests me - and interests me totally - is how we as living human beings can balance the brief, warm, intensely complicated fingersnap of our lives against the colossal, indifferent, and desolate scales of the universe. Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old. Rocks in your backyard are moving if you could only stand still enough to watch. You get hernias because, eons ago, you used to be a fish. So how in the world are we supposed to measure our lives - which involve things like opening birthday cards, stepping on our kids' LEGOs, and buying toilet paper at Safeway - against the absolutely incomprehensible vastness of the universe?

How? We stare into the fire. We turn to friends, bartenders, lovers, priests, drug-dealers, painters, writers. Isn't that why we seek each other out, why people go to churches and temples, why we read books? So that we can find out if life occasionally sets other people trembling, too? ~ Anthony Doerr

Too many people are buying gifts for themselves when they pick out a gift for a friend. ~ Phoebe Cates

Recession-resistant development produces things people need. Unsustainable growth churns out tinsel products that consumers have to be seduced into buying - until times get tough, when they quickly give them up. ~ Donella Meadows

I would avoid any product that contains genetically modified (GMO) corn, because there are still questions regarding the long-term health effects of genetically altered foods on the human body have not been thoroughly tested. Sugars are also sneaked into tons of different foods, especially foods marketed to kids. Again, study the labels carefully before buying. ~ Deirdre Imus

Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging. ~ Merlin Mann

What liberals must conserve is the middle class: the stable family who can afford to enjoy music and theater and take the kids to Europe someday and put money in the collection plate and save for college and keep up the home and be secure against catastrophe. This family has taken big hits in payroll taxes and loss of buying power and a certain suppressed panic about job security. ~ Garrison Keillor

Nobody really wants to be a trans woman, i.e. nobody wakes up and goes whoa, maybe my life would be better if I transitioned, alienating most of my friends and my family, I wonder what'll happen at work, I'd love to spend all my money on hormones and surgeries, buying a new wardrobe that I don't even understand right now, probably become unlovable and then ending my short life in a bloody murder. ~ Imogen Binnie

The process is about leadership and about taking people to places that they cannot get to on their own, while they are still feeling comfortably in control of a buying decision ~ Michelle Moore

Buying a matching blouse and skirt from the same store is a crime. A clever mix of chic and cheap hits the jackpot. Know how to mix styles and labels. ~ Ines De La Fressange

Buying is much more American than thinking. ~ Andy Warhol

Water must be free for sustenance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature's gift and denies the poor of their human rights. ~ Vandana Shiva

Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get home, but it doesn't always go with everything in the house. ~ Jean Kerr

But the real focus should be on people who are buying today because the base is so big it will take a long time for any change materialize on an overall basis. ~ Sanjay Kumar

A lot of what I do is running businesses rather than buying stocks. My worst decision is probably when I know I have the wrong chief executive running the business, and I keep on waiting to make the difficult decision of replacing him. ~ Gerry Schwartz

FINANCIAL TIP
For guys
buying the stupid flowers when you're supposed to will be way cheaper than what you'll have to buy and do to make up for it if you forget. ~ Jill Conner Browne

If," ["the management consultant"] said tersely, "we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy. . ."
"Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect. "Fiscal policy!"
The management consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied.
"Fiscal policy. . ." he repeated, "that is what I said."
"How can you have money," demanded Ford, "if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know."
"If you would allow me to continue.. ."
Ford nodded dejectedly.
"Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich."
Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed.
"But we have also," continued the management consultant, "run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship's peanut."
Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down.
"So in order to obviate this problem," he continued, "and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances."
The crowd seemed a little uncertain about th ~ Douglas Adams

I'm no longer a shoeaholic, but I used to be. I used to spend all my time on tour either buying records or shoes. ~ Jamie Cullum

The price of a commodity will never go to zero. When you invest in commodities futures, you're not buying a piece of paper that says you own an intangible piece of company that can go bankrupt. ~ Jim Rogers

Needless to say, the business of living interferes with the solitude so needed for any work of the imagination. Here's what Virginia Woolf said in her diary about the sticky issue: I've shirked two parties, and another Frenchman, and buying a hat, and tea with Hilda Trevelyan, for I really can't combine all this with keeping all my imaginary people going. ~ Virginia Woolf

That when you're buying books, you're optimistically thinking you're buying the time to read them.
(Paraphrase of Schopenhauer) ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I take my kids to the farmer's market - knowing I'm buying local and fresh makes the humiliation of the little choo-choo train ride worthwhile. ~ Sara Gilbert

It is crucial to have a strategy in place before problems hit, precisely because no one can accurately predict the future direction of the stock market or economy. Value investing, the strategy of buying stocks at an appreciable discount from the value of the underlying businesses, is one strategy that provides a road map to successfully navigate not only through good times but also through turmoil. ~ Seth Klarman

If you go to Japan, they're still buying vinyl, and they want the education. They know who's playing on what tracks from the '60s and the '70s - who the guitar player is, who the drummer is, who the producer was, what studio it was recorded in. That's how I grew up listening to music. We bought albums. We read the liner notes. It was important to know the whole history behind it. ~ Lenny Kravitz

Rights are something made up by governments to make you feel like you're buying something with your taxes. ~ Stefan Molyneux

If the choice is between buying another building or a Pollock, I'd go for the Pollock every time. ~ Damien Hirst

Wardrobing is buying an item of clothing, wearing it for a while, and then returning it in such a state that the store has to accept it but can no longer resell it. By engaging in wardrobing, consumers are not directly stealing money from the company; instead, it is a dance of buying and returning, with many unclear transactions involved. But there is at least one clear consequence - the clothing industry estimates that its annual losses from wardrobing are about $16 billion (about the same amount as the estimated annual loss from home burglaries and automobile theft combined). ~ Dan Ariely

Look honey, I ain't buying what you're selling so get out!"
"You prefer to be lying here or in the morgue?! Things got outta hand last night but at least you're alive! If we wanted you dead, don't you think I would have drained you by now, or dragged you outta here! We are trying to help you!"
"And I'm sure Jaws was just trying to help Quint! Get out! ~ S.L.J. Shortt

For billionaires who cannot buy good press, there is the option of buying the press. ~ William Finnegan

The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don't seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it's because we're engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves ... as suppliants admitted to a shrine. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

Broken! Busted! Everybody has something to repair. Before buying new, let Mighty Putty fix it for you. ~ Billy Mays

The cost of campaigning has skyrocketed in recent years because of the falloff in TV viewership. With only one-third as many people watching TV as did 20 years ago, politicians have responded by buying three times as many ads, driving the cost of campaigning to levels which only favored candidates can afford. ~ Dick Morris

For every book you buy, you should buy the time to read it. ~ Karl Lagerfeld

Mary was proud of her husband, not merely because he was a musician, but because he was a blacksmith. For, with the true taste of a right woman, she honored the manhood that could do hard work. The day will come, and may I do something to help it hither, when the youth of our country will recognize that, taken in itself, it is a more manly, and therefore in the old true sense a more _gentle_ thing, to follow a good handicraft, if it make the hands black as a coal, than to spend the day in keeping books, and making up accounts, though therein the hands should remain white--or red, as the case may be. Not but that, from a higher point of view still, all work, set by God, and done divinely, is of equal honor; but, where there is a choice, I would gladly see boy of mine choose rather to be a blacksmith, or a watchmaker, or a bookbinder, than a clerk. Production, making, is a higher thing in the scale of reality, than any mere transmission, such as buying and selling. It is, besides, easier to do honest work than to buy and sell honestly. The more honor, of course, to those who are honest under the greater difficulty! But the man who knows how needful the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," knows that he must not be tempted into temptation even by the glory of duty under difficulty. In humility we must choose the easiest, as we must hold our faces unflinchingly to the hardest, even to the seeming impossible, when it is given us to do. ~ George MacDonald

You are buying into the cross-stitched sentiments of your parents' throw pillows. ~ John Green

I don't want people buying my records for this summer's hit. I want people buying them because they're interested in what Ministry will have to say in the future. ~ Al Jourgensen

CUSTOMER: I'm always on night shift at work.
BOOKSELLER (jokingly): Is that why you're buying so many vampire novels?
CUSTOMER (seriously): You can never be too prepared. ~ Jen Campbell

Coconut oil mixed with olive oil is what I put on my body every day; I put rose hip oil on my face. If my hair feels dry, instead of going and buying something filled with chemicals, I put egg whites or avocados or mayonnaise in my hair. I leave it on there for an hour or two and I wash it out. ~ Nikki Reed

It's time we stand up and demand more of the fathers of this world. It's time we stop buying into their rationalizations and their sorry explanations. It's time we give our kids a fighting chance. ~ Dan Pearce

One of Britain's big problems throughout history has been that we lust after consumer goods from elsewhere, but our friends overseas have been less enthusiastic about buying things we produce. ~ Kate Williams

Stop buying things you don't need, to impress people you don't even like. ~ Suze Orman

How much you accumulate is a byproduct of what you enjoy doing in life. And I enjoy buying companies. ~ Michael Heisley

Many people think that buying a fake product is harmless, but counterfeiting is estimated to result in annual losses of over $20 billion dollars to American companies. ~ Tory Burch

I chose Bagdasarian Productions when I heard from some colleagues at work who were buying story boards at the time back in the early '90. I met the man once when I came in with the first half of the story board and the only thing he said when looking at the first half of the board was, "It's so nice to see someone using their imagination." ~ Mike Royer

Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man ... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God! ~ Victor Hugo

When you're buying a pair of TOMS, if you don't feel like you're part of a community, then I've failed. ~ Blake Mycoskie

Brigitte Bardot was one of the first women to be really modern and treat men like love objects, buying them and discarding them. I like that. ~ Andy Warhol

Buying is more American than thinking, and I'm as American as they come. ~ Andy Warhol

The disaster in the Gulf was no accident. It was the result of years of oil money buying off politicians to lead to an unregulated and ill focused addiction to oil and drilling. The doomed fate of the local fisherman and the environment were foretold in the infamous chants of 'Drill, Baby, Drill.' ~ Robert Greenwald

There's a cardinal rule in book publishing that applies equally to brain surgery and auto mechanics: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Since people are still buying the original Where Is God When It Hurts? ~ Philip Yancey

No. I'm not buying a shirt."
I could buy you a shirt."
I don't need you to buy me a shirt."
Mercedes pulled him over to the nice GQ-dude who worked the department. "Tell him he needs a new shirt."
I don't need a new shirt."
Sir, you need a new shirt. ~ Kathleen O'Reilly

I was thinking recently, If the body really is the new dress, as some are saying - with women buying boobs, butts, faces - then who needs a dressmaker? So I started designing spring like a plastic surgeon - everything stretchy and nude. But after three weeks, I was so bored with myself and the world, I began adding diamond butterflies and chiffon and colors. I realized that fashion is not about second skin. It's not the perfect white shirt or camel jacket. What women need is a dream. ~ Alber Elbaz

I talk about reducing our dependence on foreign oil. If we're buying electricity from a solar-thermal plant in Tijuana, I'm not sure we should say that's evil. If we are buying wind power from Alberta, I don't have a huge objection to that. ~ Jay Inslee

I had a dream about you. The Thursdays were back, and with them they brought hope. They were selling, and everybody was buying. I tried telling the people they shouldn't buy, because if they just wait 24 hours, the product would be free. What the Thursdays sold was both priceless and worthless, depending on when you acquired it. ~ Jarod Kintz

I have gone to [this bookshop] for years, always finding the one book I wanted - and then three more I hadn't known I wanted. ~ Mary Ann Shaffer

I couldn't avoid my reflection in the large mirrored wall that sat over the vanity area... I had grey smudges of mascara streaked down my face. I guess that's what you get for buying the cheap makeup. Next breakdown I'd be sure to wear waterproof. ~ Donna Augustine

I never buy a piece of art. I don't see the point in buying something because I know my eyes will get bored of it eventually. ~ Karl Pilkington

One lesson I got from Gandhi, 'Be the change you want to see,' haunts me. I just feel like I can't keep stomping around pointing the finger at BP when I am supporting the oil industry with my very own dollars and actions by buying their products, helping to pay their mortgage - plastic is from oil ... polyester, shower curtains. ~ Kristin Bauer Van Straten

We are going to have to do something about all this violence, or people are going to keep buying tickets. ~ Conn Smythe

So, where are the robots? We've been told for 40 years already that they're coming soon. Very soon they'll be doing everything for us. They'll be cooking, cleaning, buying things, shopping, building. But they aren't here. Meanwhile, we have illegal immigrants doing all the work, but we don't have any robots. ~ Hod Lipson

The biggest criticism would be buying clothes that are too big or trying too hard. I tend to like things a little leaner and more formfitting. I believe personal style often outweighs fashion. Just be yourself. ~ Simon Spurr

As the war progresses, and as population increases to an even more intolerable level stretching resources to impossible lengths, the strong will begin fighting for their very survival. That's what we're seeing right now. Society will become more and more stratified into the people who aren't buying the bullshit in society and those who blindly follow where they are led. Satanists, freethinkers, are a burgeoning minority cause. We have an illness that needs to be recognized just like alcoholism, handicaps, addictive behaviors and AIDS. We suffer from a disease called independence - a pathological aversion to regimentation and institutionalism - which prevents us from getting 'regular' jobs and living a 'normal' life. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey

Because of economics, you have to feed the demographics that are buying your product. So, as Asia becomes a much more economic influence on the products that are being made from America, I think people have to be sensitive. ~ Sung Kang

When I bought my farm, I did not know what a bargain I had in the bluebirds, daffodils and thrushes; as little did I know what sublime mornings and sunsets I was buying. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know how much parents love buying clothes for their kids and how they want to give them something new in the closet. ~ Liya Kebede

In historical terms women, black people in general, were very attracted to very bright-colored clothing. Most people are frightened by color anyway...They just are. In this culture quiet colors are considered elegant. Civilized Western people wouldn't buy bloodred sheets or dishes. There may be something more to it than what I am suggesting. But the slave population had no access even to what color there was, because they wore slave clothes, hand-me-downs, work clothes made out of burlap and sacking. For them a colored dress would be luxurious; it wouldn't matter whether it was rich or poor cloth . . . just to have a red or a yellow dress. I stripped Beloved of color so that there are only the small moments when Sethe runs amok buying ribbons and bows, enjoying herself the way children enjoy that kind of color. The whole business of color was why slavery was able to last such a long time. It wasn't as though you had a class of convicts who could dress themselves up and pass themselves off. No, these were people marked because of their skin color, as well as other features. So color is a signifying mark. Baby Suggs dreams of color and says, "Bring me a little lavender." It is a kind of luxury. We are so inundated with color and visuals. I just wanted to pull it back so that one could feel that hunger and that delight. ~ Toni Morrison