Quotes About Perception

The town had a basketful of feelings good and bad about Joe's positions and possessions, but none had the temerity to challenge him. They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.

Death had found them watching, trying to see beyond seeing.

They, the men, were saving with the mind what they lost with the eye.

Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.

Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don't think none theirselves. Ah knows a few things, and womenfolks thinks sometimes too! Aw naw they don't. They just think they's thinkin'. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don't understand one.

Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me how surprised He was 'bout y'all turning out so smart after Him makin' yuh different; and how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think you do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens.

There was some more good-natured laughter at the expense of women.

For what can excuse a man in the eyes of other men for lack of strength?

It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh.

For the first time she could see a man's head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted out of the tunnel of his mouth. She saw he was hurting inside so she let it pass without talking.

Ah'm hard of understandin' at times.

He had a bow-down command in his face, and every step he took made the thing more tangible.

The myths she describes so accurately are in fact "alternative modes for perceiving reality," and never just condescending depictions of the quaint.

That which she chooses to reveal is the life of her imagination, as it sought to mold and interpret her environment.

We Negroes in Eatonville know a number of things that the hustling, bustling white man never dreams of. He is a materialist with little care for overtones.

One white reviewer in 1937 [said he] had difficulty believing that such a town as Eatonville, inhabited and governed entirely by negroes, could be real.

Ah betcha you wants some dressed up dude dat got to look at de sole of his shoe everytime he cross de street tuh see whether he got enough leather dere tuh make it across.

They, the men, were saving with the mind what they lost with the eye. The women took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away for remembrance.

Everytime Ah see uh patch uh roses uh somethin' over sportin' they selves makin' out they pretty, Ah tell 'em 'Ah want yuh tuh see mah Janie sometime.' You must let de flowers see yuh sometimes, heah, Janie?

Unless you see de fur, a mink skin ain't no different from a coon hide.

Time makes everything old so the kissing, young darkness became a monstropolous old thing while Janie talked.

in de woods." "It is a whole heap littler than Ah thought." Janie admitted her

As author, she functions as "a midwife participating in the birth of a body of folklore,…the first wondering contacts with natural law." The myths she describes so accurately are in fact "alternative modes for perceiving reality," and never just condescending depictions of the quaint.

Here it is just like it is in Egypt—the scared people do all of the biggest talk.