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Shug: I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.
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Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
Celie: You saying God is vain?
Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don't notice it.
Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the bible?
Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention... except walk?
[they laugh]
Shug: Oh Miss Celie, I feels like singing!
-
Harpo: Who this, Pa? Who this?
Albert: The woman that shoulda been yo' mammy.
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Celie: The jail you planned for me is the one you're gonna rot in.
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Celie: [lunging towards Albert with a knife] I curse you. Until you do right by me everything you think about is gonna crumble!
Sofia: Don't do it Mrs. Celie. Don't trade places with what I been through.
Shug: Come on, Celie, let's go to the car.
Sofia: He ain't worth it, he ain't worth it.
Albert: Who you think you is? You can curse nobody. Look at you. Your black, you're poor, you're ugly, you're a woman, you're nothing at all!
Celie: Until you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna fail!
Grady: It's been a pleasure meeting all of you. Good-bye.
-
Shug: [to Celie] You sho' is ugly!
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Squeak: Harpo! Who dis woman?
Harpo: Now come now, you know who this is.
Squeak: She best'a leave you alone.
Sophia: Fine with me.
Harpo: [to Sophia] You ain't got to go nowhere. Dis here my juke-joint.
Squeak: [to Harpo] You said dis here our juke-joint!
Harpo: Listen woman, can't a man dance with his wife if he wants to?
Squeak: Not if she a heifer!
[to Sophia]
Squeak: And not if he my man! You just a big ol heifer. Ha Ha Ha.
Sophia: [to Squeak] Like I said, fine with me!
-
Old Mr.: [referring to Shug] She black as tar, nappy-headed, got legs like baseball bats, and I hear she got that nasty women's disease.
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Young Celie: Write!
Nettie: What?
Young Celie: Write!
Nettie: Nothing but death can keep me from it!
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Celie: [to Shug] He beat me when you ain't here.
Shug: Who do? Albert?
Celie: Mister.
Shug: Why he do that?
Celie: He beat me for not being you.
-
Shug: See Daddy, sinners have souls too.
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Sophia: All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I'd have to fight in my own house!
-
Sophia: I loves Harpo, God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead 'fo I let him beat me.
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Old Mr.: Boy, you goin' let this ol' nappy-headed girl cuss you out like that? You sittin' at the head of your own dinner table and actin' like the waiter!
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Celie: [on leaving the farm in Shug's car, shouting to Albert] I'm poor, black, I might even be ugly, but dear God, I'm here. I'm here.
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Old Mr.: Celie, you has my sympathy. Ain't many women allow they husband's ho to lay up in they house.
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Old Mr.: [Sofia begins to laugh after years of silence] My God, the dead has arisen.
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Shug: [after telling Albert that she and her husband are leaving] Celie is coming with us.
Albert: What?
Shug: Celie is coming with us to Memphis.
Albert: Over my dead body.
Shug: You satisfied? That what you want?
Albert: [to Celie] NOW What's wrong with you?
Celie: You a low down dirty dog, that's what's wrong. Time for me to get away from you, and enter into Creation. And your dead body'd be just the welcome mat I need.
-
Sofia: [after telling Celie she knows how she feels] Oh... Sofia home, now. Sofia home. Things is gonna be changin' around here. Pass me them peas, boy.
-
Sofia: Sat in that jail, I sat in that jail til I near about done rot to death. I know what it like to wanna go somewhere and cain't. I know what it like to wanna sing... and have it beat out 'ya. I want to thank you, Miss Celie, fo everything you done for me. I 'members that day in the store with Miss Millie - I's feelin' real down. I's feelin' mighty bad. And when I seed you - I know'd there is a God. I know'd there is a God.
-
Squeak: You just a big ol' heifer!
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Celie: [Celie confronts Albert] Nettie and my kids be comin' home soon, and when they get here we gonna' set around and whip your ass.
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Celie: [to Albert] Till you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna' fail.
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Celie: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Shug: I's married now! I's married now!
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Sofia: Sofia's happy now.
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Sofia: Now you want a dead son-in-law, Mrs. Celie? You just keep on advising him like you doing.
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Celie: Shug like honey. And now, I's just like a bee.
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Pa Harris: [as he snatches away Celie newborn daughter] You better not tell nobody but God. It'll kill yo mama.
-
Miss Millie: You kids are so clean. You wanna come work for me, be my maid?
Sofia: Hell no.
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Celie: [to herself, after Shug shouts Albert's first name when she throws the burned food out of the bedroom] Albert?
-
Sofia: You told Harpo to beat me?
-
Shug: Do you mind if Albert sleep with me?
Celie: Do you like sleeping with him?
-
Shug: That means you still a virgin.
Celie: Yeah, because don't nobody love me.
Shug: I love you.
-
Celie: Most time I pretend I ain't even there. He don't know the difference.
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Celie: He just climb on top of me and do his business.
Shug: "Do his business"? You sound like he going to the toilet on you.
Celie: That's what it feel like.
Shug: Why then, Miss Celie... that means you still a virgin!
-
Shug: You sho is ugly.
The Color Purple Quotes
Extended Reading
