Quotes About Freedom

You know what they say about living well as the best revenge. I did well because it was the one defense I had. Escape has been the motivating force in my life. Getting away from him, getting away from her, putting that household behind me. The funny this is, I haven't moved an inch, and the harder I run, the faster I keep slipping back to them...There are laws for everything except the harm families do.

I love being single. It's almost like being rich.

Sometimes I stand in the bathtub, elbows resting on the sill, and stare at passing cars, just thinking how lucky I am. I love being single. It's almost like being rich. I

I felt a jolt of pure joy. It was one of those occasions when I suddenly realized how happy I was. Life was good. I was female, single, with money in my pocket and enough gas to get home. I had nobody to answer to and no ties to speak of. I was healthy, physically fit, filled with energy.

All the little birdies had flown out of this man's tree.

Nothing wrong with being single when you can do as you please without objection or complaint.

My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round.

I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just going to lay it down now. It's my time to die, and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up.

Yes, here I am returning, the woman who bore herself to the bottom and back. Who wanted to swim like dolphins, leaping waves and diving. Who wanted only to belong to herself.

When a woman starts to disentangle herself from patriarchy, ultimately she is abandoned to her own self.

Do not fear to lose what needs to be lost.

It has come as a great revelation to me," I wrote her, "that abolition is different from the desire for racial equality. Color prejudice is at the bottom of everything. If it's not fixed, the plight of the Negro will continue long after abolition.

Being in love and getting married, now, that's two different things. I was in love once, of course I was. Nobody should go through life without falling in love. But didn't you love him enough to marry him? I loved him enough, I just loved my freedom more.

Her mind was an immense feral country that spilled its borders.

How can you ask us to go back to our parlors?" I said, rising to my feet. "To turn our backs on ourselves and on our own sex? We don't wish the movement to split, of course we don't—it saddens me to think of it—but we can do little for the slave as long as we're under the feet of men. Do what you have to do, censure us, withdraw your support, we'll press on anyway. Now, sirs, kindly take your feet off our necks.

There was a time in Africa the people could fly. Mauma told me this one night when I was ten years old. She said, "Handful, your granny-mauma saw it for herself. She say they flew over trees and clouds. She say they flew like blackbirds. When we came here, we left that magic behind.

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.

The truth may set you free, but first it will shatter the safe, sweet way you live.

You do your rebellions any way you can.

I would like to be free of the part of me that dares too little and fears too much.

You think there's no detriment in a slave learning to read? There are sad truths in our world, and one is that slaves who read are a threat.

Be careful, you can get enslaved twice, once in your body and once in your mind.

As long as you live under my roof, you'll do what I say! he shouted. Then I'll find another roof, I thought. You understand me? he said. Yes sir, I understand I said, and I did too. I understand that a new rooftop would do wonders for me.

She couldn't get free and she couldn't pop missus on the back of her head with a cane, but she could take her silk. You do your rebellions any way you can.