The Color Purple

THE COLOR PURPLE
ALICE WALKER

PUBLISHED BY POCKET BOOKS NEW YORK
i POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230
Avenue of the Americas, New York, N. Y. 10020
Copyright © 1982 by Alice Walker Cover art courtesy Warner Bros.
Published by arrangement with Harcourt Brace Jbvanovich Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 81-48242
Al rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. fatinformation address Harcourt Brace Jbvanovich Inc.,
1250 Sixth Avenue , San Diego , Cal. 92101
ISBN: 0-671-61702-8
First Pocket Books mass-market printing December, 1985

There's something in all of us that wants a
medal for what we have done. That wants to be appreciated.

I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found it.

I start to wonder why us need love. Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women. Where do children really come from. It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don’t mean nothing if you don’t ask why you here, period.

If a mule could tell folks how it’s treated, it would.

I sit here in this big house by myself trying to sew, but what good is sewing gon do? What good is anything? Being alive begin to seem like a awful strain.

I pray to die, just so I don’t never have to speak.

Well, I say, if words could kill, I’d be in the ambulance.

Hold it, I say. Shug, you killing me.

Miss Celie, say Sofia, but Mr. _____ act like he trying to git religion.

Big a devil as he is, I say, trying is bout all he can do.