Quotes from Jean Toomer

Beehive" Within this black hive to-night There swarm a million bees; Bees passing in and out the moon, Bees escaping out the moon, Bees returning through the moon, Silver bees intently buzzing, Silver honey dripping from the swarm of bees. Earth is a waxen cell of the world comb, And I, a drone, Lying on my back, Lipping honey, Getting drunk with silver honey, Wish that I might fly out past the moon And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower.

The Gods Are Here" This is no mountain But a house, No rock of solitude But a family chair, No wilds But life appearing As life anywhere domesticated, Yet I know the gods are here, And that if I touch them I will arise And take majesty into the kitchen.

You are the most sleepiest man I ever seed.

Night winds in Georgia are vagrant poets, whispering.

I am of no particular race. I am of the human race, a man at large in the human world, preparing a new race. I am of no specific region. I am of earth. I am of no particular class. I am of the human class, preparing a new class. I am neither male nor female nor in-between. I am of sex, with male differentiations. I am of no special field. I am of the field of being.

The earth, to man, is an infected planet. The human world wants to hear what is wrong with it. It is satisfied with the diagnosis. It does not want to make effort attempting a basic cure. Man has a stubborn will to circulate poison.

But words is like th spots on dice: no matter how y fumbles em, there's times when they jes wont come.

Dusk, suggesting the almost imperceptible posession of giant trees, settled with a purple haze about the cane. I felt strange, as I always do in Georgia, particularly at dusk. I felt that things unseen to men were tangibly immediate. It would not have surprised me had I had a vision.

There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them.

Her body was tortured with something it could not let out.

Her own glowing is too rich a thing to let her feel the slimness of his diluted passion.

As you know, men are apt to idolize or fear that which they cannot understand, especially if it be a woman.

Men had always wanted her, this Karintha, even as a child, Karintha carrying beauty, perfect as dusk when the sun goes down.

Her mind is a pink mesh-bag filled with baby toes.

Once I saw large waves Crested with white-caps; A driving wind Transformed the caps Into scudding spray. "Swift souls," I addressed them— They turned towards me Startled Sea-descending faces; But I, not they, Felt the pang of transience.

Fear is a noose that binds until it strangles.

We learn the rope of life by untying its knots.

People mistake their limitations for high standards.

Acceptance of prevailing standards often means we have no standards of our own.

Perhaps . . . our lot on the earth is to seek and to search. Now and again we find just enough to enable us to carry on. I now doubt that any of us will completely find and be found in this life.

Talk about it only enough to do it. Dream about it only enough to feel it. Think about it only enough to understand it. Contemplate it only enough to be it.

The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.

No eyes that have seen beauty ever lose their sight.

Men are apt to idolize or fear that which they cannot understand, especially if it be a woman.