She was one of the few things abhorrent to him that he could touch and therefore hurt. He poured out on her the sum of all his inarticulate fury and aborted desires. Hating her, he could leave himself intact.

And then she knew. Her friends and neighbors were angry at her because she had overstepped, given too much, offended them by excess.

Hi, dumplin'. Where your socks?" Marie seldom called Pecola the same thing twice, but invariably her epithets were fond ones chosen from menus and dishes that were forever uppermost in her mind.

The best thing was to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.

He dragged her under him and made love to her with the steadiness and the intensity of a man about to leave for Dayton.

God has commanded us to love our wives even when they don't deserve it—for if we love them only when they deserve it, where would grace be? In fact, we need to love our wives the most when they deserve it the least.

The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.

Trying to be patient with people without loving them is like expecting there to be heat without actually lighting the torch.

I was beginning to learn from my grandfather that love covers a multitude of sins and that I was more important to him than his stuff.

Love is sunshine to the rose. It can't stop shinin' just because the bud begins to bloom.

What occurs between the lover and the beloved is the entire fullness of the Godhead. .. the God is born in solitude, from the secret mystery of the individual. The separation between life and love is the contradiction between solitude and togetherness.

Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end.