Best Quotes from The Color Purple with Page Numbers

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awarded for her novel The Color Purple. Over the span of her career, Walker has published seventeen novels and short story collections, twelve non-fiction works, and collections of essays and poetry. 

Below, find the best quotes from The Color Purple and corresponding page numbers! I utilize my own editions (which match the cover images used below), but regardless, the quotes will appear in order of whichever text you use. 

The Color Purple (1982)

• 
  She ast me bout the first one Whose it is? I say God's. I don't know no other man or what else to say.
• page 2

• She say, All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.
• page 39

• This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways.
• page 41

• All womens not alike, Tobias, she say. Believe it or not. Oh, I believe it, he say. Just can't prove it to the world. First time I think about the world.
• page 56

• "Tea" to the English is really a picnic indoors.
• page 137

• The Olinka do not believe girls should be educated. When I asked a mother why she thought this, she said: A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something. What can she become? I asked. Why, she said, the mother of his children. But I am not the mother of anybody's children, I said, and I am something.
• pages 154-155

• The world is changing, I said. It is no longer a world just for boys and men.
• page 160

• Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.
• page 163

• Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.
• page 184

• She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.
• page 192

• Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit. It? I ast. Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It. But what do it look like? I ast. Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
• page 194

• But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed.
• page 195

• But more than anything else, God love admiration. You saying God vain? I ast. Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. What it do when it pissed off? I ast. Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
• page 195

• Everything wants to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flowers bouquets, trying to be loved.
• pages 195-196

• Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he aain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock. But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.
• page 196

• Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.
• page 199

• I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.
• page 206

• God is different to us now, after all these years in Africa. More spirit than ever before, and more internal. Most people think he has to look like something or someone—a roofleaf or Christ—but we don't. And not being tied to what God looks like, frees us.
• page 255

• Just cause I love her don't take away none of her rights.
• page 266

• Who am I to tell her who to love? My job just to love her good and true and myself.
• page 267

• But when you talk bout love I don't have to guess. I have love and I have been love. And I thank God he let me gain understanding enough to know can't be halted just cause some peoples moan and groan.
• pages 267-268

• I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.
• page 281

• If she come, I be happy. If she don't, I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn.
• page 281

• But I don't think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.
• page 286