“She felt like her soul was a handful of dice that were still rolling, and what came up would decide the shape that the rest of her life took.”

“She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.”

“But it is woven into her nature - to laud to the skies the person she admires. But apart from these defects, where would you find a woman like her who has given up her life and soul for India?”

“She still felt his gaze on her like the brush of a finger across the back of her neck, making her shiver.”

“For the rest of my life I would be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest WHAT IF.”

“This is worse than when Paul D came to 124 and she cried helplessly into the stove. This is worse. Then it was for herself. Now she is crying because she has no self… She doesn't move to open the door because there is no world out there. She decides to stay in the cold house and let the dark swallow her like the minnows of light above. She won't put up with another leaving, another trick. Waking up to find one brother then another not at the bottom of the bed, his foot jabbing her spine. Sitting at the table eating turnips and saving the liquor for her grandmother to drink; her mother's hand on the keeping-room door and her voice saying, 'Baby Suggs is gone, Denver.' And when she got around to worrying about what would be the case if Sethe died or Paul D took her away, a dream-come-true comes true just to leave her on a pile of newspaper in the dark.”

“They came to her, naturally, since she was a woman, all day long with this and that; one wanting this, another that; the children were growing up; she often felt she was nothing but a sponge sopped full of human emotions.”

“I like her; I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile.”

“Thinking that it would console him, she took a piece of charcoal and erased the innumerable loves that he still owed her for, and she voluntarily brought up her own most solitary sadnesses so as not to leave him alone in his weeping.”

“Whenever he felt like giving up, plopping himself down, and dying (which was, like, every ten minutes), he reached over and took her hand, just to remember there was warmth in the world.”