When You Dance with the Devil Quotes

“Sara, do this and Sara, do that. Sara, bring me this. Pick up that. Sara, come here. Sara, go there. Commands that she would never hear again, and that she would not miss.”

“She had avoided burying her mother beneath a blanket of white flowers for, to her, white symbolized purity, and nothing - not even death - would lead her to link Emma Tilman with purity.”

“To her mind, meanness was incompatible with purity, and meanness was the one word that, since her early childhood, she had always associated with her mother.”

“Tears? She had no tears for Emma Tilman.”

“The tears that finally streamed from her eyes were tears not of mourning but of relief, and tears for the dark unknown that lay ahead of her.”

“When they buried mama, they threw dirt on the last person who’s going to exploit me.”

“If you don’t get out of that old house, you’ll waste away, a bitter woman like your mother and grandmother.”

“If Emma had ever smiled at her, Sara Jolene had not been looking. But Emma had been adept at mental torture.”

“I’m no worse than I ever was. This is just different.”

“He appreciated a business-like person, but the litany of regulations that rolled off the woman’s tongue made him nervous.”

“She’s, and I’m still not free of her.”

“Well, that’s all in the past. Tomorrow, I’ll start finding out what life is really like.”

“Her hood looks had never interested her; any effort she had made on her own behalf had been directed toward the simple matter of existing.”

“If I have to learn how other people live, I’d better start now.”

“The empty void inside of her was a new experience, or maybe it had always been there, and she’d been so harassed, so put upon that she hadn’t had time for self-reflection.”

″ ‘Being black doesn’t mean being stupid.’ Lord, how good it felt to speak her mind. She was through with ‘yessing’ people.”

“She flashed him a smile. A flirtatious smile. The weapon of a woman who knew how to handle man.”

“However, she needed a friend, any friend to whom she could feel close. At least she thought that was what she needed.”

“Her words stayed with him. For as long as he could remember, he had focused on himself, what he wanted, and how he’d get it.”

“But when he finally reached the pinnacle, his trophy ran like water through his fingers, and only then had he realized what was really important to him. Too late. Much too late.”