Quotes from Sue Monk Kidd

The words are on my tongue—the rounded lumps of them, shining like the marbles beneath the tree.

Mauma told me, "It gon be hard from here on, Handful.

You don't have to feel love for her. Only try to act with love.

Thomas argued that if these strange animals were truly extinct, it implied poor planning on God's part, threatening the ideal of God's perfection, therefore, such creatures must still be alive in remote places on earth. I argued that even God should be allowed to change his mind. "Why should God's perfection be based on having an unchanging

I am Ana. I was the wife of Jesus of Nazareth. I am a voice.

I felt like I was dissolving. A dandelion going to seed.

I tell you, there are times when words are so glad to be set free they laugh out loud and prance across their tablets and inside their scrolls. So it was with the words I wrote. They reveled till dawn.

One time, that true brass thimble.

Far away, I heard the mournful call of an owl. The sound caused a pressure in my throat and I realized it was the need to fashion a story. To call into the blackness like the owl.

I turned off the light and tried to sleep but ended up nursing a sense of loss that seemed heavier than ever.

It's not meant to be a factual story, but it's still true.

It's not meant to be a factual story, but it's still true.

As the procession began again, I noticed that the strap on one of my sandals had broken when I fell. I stooped and removed both shoes. I would go to my husband's execution as he did. Barefoot.

I didn't know how the rubble inside me could ever be put back together.

PART TWO February 1811–December 1812

Noise was on her list of slave sins, which we knew by heart. Number one: stealing. Number two: disobedience. Number three: laziness. Number four: noise. A slave was supposed to be like the Holy Ghost—don't see it, don't hear it, but it's always hovering round on ready.

Think of it, she'd said. Some part of you might die and a new self will rise up to take its place.

There was a sound like a rush of wings in the blackish clouds, and I knew his spirit had left him. I imagined it like a great flock of birds, soaring, scattering, coming to rest everywhere.

The main thing is to stop struggling and nourish yourself. When you nourish yourself, your creative energy is renewed. You are able to pick up your lyre again and sing.

we've accepted the widespread attitudes and effects of patriarchy as givens. They are so much a part of the world, we start to think that's just the way reality is. In the play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, a deceptively wise

Some truths seemed insoluble, stones that couldn't be swallowed.

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.

Once the words are out there, they start to live and breathe in unpredictable ways.

My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round. I'd dismissed the words—what could she know of it? But I saw