Important Quotations Explained
1. “It
never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have
been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot
of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his
own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive
than his lust or despair.”
2. It
had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes
that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers
were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be
different.
3. We
had defended ourselves since memory against everything and everybody,
considered all speech a code to be broken by us, and all gestures
subject to careful analysis; we had become headstrong, devious,
and arrogant. Nobody paid us any attention, so we paid very good
attention to ourselves. Our limitations were not known to us—not
then.
4. The
birdlike gestures are worn away to a mere picking and plucking her
way between the tire rims and the sunflowers, between Coke bottles
and milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the world—which
is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her
and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first
and which she gave to us.
5. Love
is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly,
violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people
love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is
no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love.
The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the
lover's inward eye.
