Toni Morrison

Sula ; Song of Solomon

The Bluest Eye

clara

Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet. 

Lukas

Sophia Bowers

We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair. What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth. Cholly Breedlove is dead; Our innocence too. The seeds shriveled and died; her baby too. There is really nothing more to say except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

 If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy. 

Only her tight, tight eyes were left. They were always left. Try as she might, she could never get her eyes to disappear. So what was the point? They were everything. Everything was there, in them. All of those pictures, all of those faces. 

Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people.

Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovey surging. 

Our astonishment was short-lived, for it gave way to a curious kind of defensive shame; we were embarrassed for Pecola, hurt for her, and finally we just felt sorry for her. (..) And I believe our sorrow was the more intense because nobody else seemed to share it. They were disgusted, amused, shocked, outraged, or even excited by the story. But we listened for the one who would say, "Poor little girl," or, “Poor baby," but there was only head-wagging where those words should have been. We looked for eyes creased with concern, but saw only veils. I thought about the baby that everybody wanted dead, and saw it very clearly. (..) More strongly than my fondness for Pecola, I felt a need for someone to want the black baby to live just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls(..)

The Bluest Eye quotes

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