Quotes from Jonathan Odell

Sometiimes when you look at a person all you see is the tangle and you miss the weave

A flapping tongue puts out the light of wisdom."~Polly Shine

When I look up, there are women as far as I can see, standing in the river one behind the other, generations going back to the beginning time, from the very womb of God.

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.

When you quilting up a life, you sometimes got to start with any piece you can get your hands on.

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.

No one had ever told her about the ingredients of life, only of biscuits.

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.

That place I'm talking about ain't nothing but a bloody slit in this world of His. But everybody wants to rule over it. It ain't for the white man to rule. Ain't for any man to rule.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Exactly what kind of creature is it?" they asked one another. She was too unsightly to be thought of as frolic in bed for the master. She was too far past her childbearing years to multiply the stock. Though she seemed nimble enough, it was hard to imagine her being brought all the way from North Carolina for field work.

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.

the saddest thing about being the only one left to tell a story is everybody who cares to listen is gone.

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

The silence of an entire race was evidence of your superiority. Fast-forward

They was just starving people is all. I fed them. Talked to them. Listened. That ain't hoodoo. Just plain sense. The magic weren't in the food. It was in the seeing.

It's always 'In the beginning' with God. Our God is sure enough a starting-over God.

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