Term
| So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead. Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and the feet. She had come back from the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgement. |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston |
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Term
| She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and fothing with delight. |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston |
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Term
| Through the pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road...That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes. |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston |
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Term
| "De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see." |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Nanny |
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Term
| ___ pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon. |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston |
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Term
| "Thank yuh fuh yo' compliments, but mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home." |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Jody Starks |
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Term
| "You have tuh have power tuh free things and dat makes you lak uh king uh something." |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Janie |
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Term
| "Ah naw they don't. They just think they's thinkin'. When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don't understand one." |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Jody Starks |
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Term
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Jody Starks |
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Term
| ___ had robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness that all men, cherish, which was terrible. The thing that Saul's daughter had done to David. |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston |
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Term
| Here ___ had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon--for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you--and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her [relative's] neck tight enough to choke her. |
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Definition
| Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God Author: Zora Neale Hurston |
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Term
| "Ah reckon you wish now you had stayed in yo' big house 'way from such as dis, don't yuh?" |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Tea Cake |
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Term
| "If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin' round and God opened de door." |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Speaker: Janie |
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Term
| "And listenin' tuh dat kind uh talk is jus' lak openin' yo' mouth and lettin'de moon shine down yo'throat. It's uh known fact...you got tub go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." |
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Definition
| Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God Author: Zora Neale Hurston Speaker: Janie |
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Term
| Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much life in its meshes. She called in her soul to come and see. |
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Definition
Work: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston |
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Term
"Your paw told you to stay out that tree."
"That was a long time ago. I expect he's forgotten about it. Besides, he said to mind me tonight. Didn't he say to mind me tonight." |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Versh and Caddy |
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Term
| I was trying to say, and I caught her, trying to say, and she screamed and I was trying to say and trying and the bright shapes began to stop and I tried to get out. |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Benjy |
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Term
| "A five year old child. No, no. Not in my lap. Let him stand up." |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Caroline/Mother |
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Term
| We were in the hall. ___ was still looking at me. Her hand was against her mouth and I saw her eyes and I cried. |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Benjy talking about Caddy |
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Term
| I passed the jeweler's window, but I looked away in time. |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Quinten |
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Term
| When they touched me I died |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Caddy (in Quinten's memory) |
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Term
| "Did you ever have a sister? Did you?" |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Quinten |
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Term
| I could feel the water beyond twilight, smell. When it bloomed in the spring and it rained the smell was everywhere you didn't notice it so much at other times but when it rained the smell began to come into the house at twilight either it would rain more at twilight or there was something in the light itself but it always smelled strongest then until I would lie in bed thinking when will it stop when will it stop. |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Quinten |
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Term
| If I'd just had a mother so I could say Mother Mother |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Quinten |
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Term
| temporary it will be better for me for all of us |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Quinten |
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Term
| Once a bitch always a bitch |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Jason |
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Term
| "I have never interfered with the way you brought them up. But now I cannot stand anymore We must decide this now, tonight. Either that name is never to be spoken in her hearing, or she must go, or I will go. Take your choice." |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Caroline/Mother |
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Term
| His eyes were clear, of the pale sweet blue of cornflowers, his thick mouth hung open, drooling a little. |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Dilsey about Benjy |
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Term
| It was nothing. Just sound. It might have been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a conjunction of planets. |
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Definition
Work: The Sound and The Fury
Author: William Fulkner
Speaker: Dilsey (Benjy's wail) |
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Term
| She would make these statements, usually at the table, in a tone of gentle insistence as if no one held them but her, and the large hulking ___, whose constant outrage had obliterated every expression from her face, would stare just a little to the side of her, her eyes icy blue, with the look of someone who has achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it. |
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Definition
Work: Good Country People
Author:Flannery O'Connor
About: Mrs. Hopewell and Joy |
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Term
| All day ___ sat on her neck in a deep chair, reading. Sometimes she went for walks but she didn't like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men. She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity. |
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Definition
Work: Good Country People
Author:Flannery O'Connor
About: Joy/Helga
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Term
| "Lady, for a Chrustian, the word of God ought to be in every room in the house besides in his heart. I know you're a Chrustian because I can see it in every line of your face." |
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Definition
Work: Good Country People
Author:Flannery O'Connor
Speaker: Manly Pointer
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Term
| "Why! Good country people are the salt of the earth! Besides, we all have different ways of doing, it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. That's life!" |
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Definition
Work: Good Country People
Author:Flannery O'Connor
Speaker: Mrs. Hopewell
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Term
| She imagined that she took his remorse in hand and changed it into a deeper understanding of life. She took all his shame away and turned it into something useful. |
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Definition
Work: Good Country People
Author:Flannery O'Connor
About: Joy
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Term
| When after a minute, she said in a hoarse high voice, "All right," it was like surrendering to him completely. It was like losing her own life and finding it again, miraculously, in his. |
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Definition
Work: Good Country People
Author:Flannery O'Connor
Speaker: Joy
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Term
| He now observed the round white moon, moving high in the sky through a cloud menagerie, and watched with half-open mouth as it penetrated a huge hen, and dropped out of her like an egg laying itself. |
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Definition
Work: The Magic Barrel
Author: Bernard Malamud
About: Leo Finkle |
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Term
| "You wouldn't believe me how much cards I got in my office. The drawers are already filled to the top, so I keep them now in a barrel, but is every girl good for a new rabbi?" |
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Definition
Work: The Magic Barrel
Author: Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Salsman
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Term
| "When did you become enamored of God?" |
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Definition
Work: The Magic Barrel
Author: Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Lily
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Term
| Out of this, however, he drew the consolation that he was a Jew and that a Jew suffered. |
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Definition
Work: The Magic Barrel
Author: Bernard Malamud
About: Leo
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Term
| "Love, I have said to myself, should be a by-product of living and worship rather than its own end. Yet for myself I find it necessary to establish the level of my need and fulfill it." |
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Definition
Work: The Magic Barrel
Author: Bernard Malamud
Speaker: Leo
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Term
| After a while, however, as ___ attempted to return the photographs into the envelop, he found in it another, a shapshot of the type taken by a machine for a quarter. He gazed at it a moment and let out a cry. Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. |
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Definition
Work: The Magic Barrel
Author: Bernard Malamud
About: Leo
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Term
| Around the corner, ____, leaning against a wall, chanted prayers for the dead. |
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Definition
Work: The Magic Barrel
Author: Bernard Malamud
About: Salzman
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Term
| His heart was high and he ran across the grass. Making his way home by an uncommon route gave him the feeling that he was a pilgrim, an explorer, a man with a destiny, and he knew that he would find frineds all along the way; friends would line the banks... |
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Definition
Work: The Swimmer
Author: John Cheever
About: Neddy Merrill |
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Term
| Was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of the truth? |
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Definition
Work: The Swimmer
Author: John Cheever
About: Neddy Merrill
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Term
| Was he losing his memory, had his gift for concealing painful facts let him forget that he had sold his house, that his children were in trouble, and that his friend had been ill? |
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Definition
Work: The Swimmer
Author: John Cheever
About: Neddy Merrill
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Term
| Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer? He began to cry. |
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Definition
Work: The Swimmer
Author: John Cheever
About: Neddy Merrill
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Term
| The day was fair. All that June the weather had mocked the Maples' internal misery with solid sunlight--golden shafts and cascades of green in which their conversations had wormed unseeing, their sad murmuring selves the only stain in Nature. |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike |
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Term
| Time, like the sunlight, continued relentlessly; the sunlight slowly slanted. Today was one of the longest days. The lock clicked, worked. He was through. |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike
About: Richard
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Term
| "You didn't want to. You loved it. You were having your way, making a general announcement." |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike
Speaker: Joan
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Term
| " I love having it over. God, those kids were great. So brave and funny. And the way they never questioned the reasons we gave. No thought of a third person. Not even Judith." |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike
Speaker: Richard
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Term
| "If I could undo it all, I would." |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike
Speaker: Richard
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Term
| They turned the corner; the church they went to loomed like a gutted fort. The home of the woman ___ hoped to marry stood across the green. Her bedroom light burned. |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike
About: Richard
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Term
| When she stood, an inexplicable light--the moon?--outlined her body through the nightie. ___ sat on the warm place she had indented on the child's narrow mattress. |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike
About: Richard and Joan
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Term
| "Why?" Why. It was a whistle of wind in a crack, a knife thrust, a window thrown open on emptiness. The white face was gone, the darkness was featureless. [He] had forgotten why. |
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Definition
Work: Separating
Author: John Updike
Speaker: Dickie
About: Rickard
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Term
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers. |
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Definition
Work: The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Speaker: Langston Hughes |
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Term
I am your son, white man!
A little yellow
Bastard boy. |
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Definition
Work: Mulatto
Speaker: Langston Hughes |
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Term
Juicy bodies
Of nigger wenches
Blue black
Against black fences.
O, you little bastard boy,
What's a body but a toy?
The sent of pine wood stings the soft night air.
What's the body of your mother? |
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Definition
Work: Mulatto
Speaker: Langston Hughes
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Term
The wine-flushed bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place. |
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Definition
Work: The Harlem Dancer
Speaker: Claude McKay |
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Term
And you mixed 'em up with symphonies
And you fixed 'em
So they don't sound like me.
Yep, you done taken my blues and gone. |
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Definition
Work: Note on Commercial Theater
Speaker: Langston Hughes |
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Term
But someday somebody'll
Stand up and talk about me,
And write about me--
Black and beautiful--
And sing about me,
And put on plays about me!
I recon it'll be
Me myself!
Yes, it'll be me. |
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Definition
Work: Note on Commercial Theater
Speaker: Langston Hughes
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Term
But I think it would be bettah,
Ef I 'd pause agin to say,
Dat I 'm talkin' 'bout ouah freedom
In a Bibleistic way. |
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Definition
Work: An Ante-Bellum Sermon
Speaker: Paul Laurence Dunbar |
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Term
An' dahs othahs thinks lak Pher'oh,
But dey calls de Scriptuah liar,
Fu' de Bible says " a servant
Is a-worthy of his hire." |
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Definition
Work: An Ante-Bellum Sermon
Speaker: Paul Laurence Dunbar |
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Term
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask! |
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Definition
Work: We Wear the Mask
Speaker: Paul Laurence Dunbar |
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Term
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues! |
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Definition
Work: The Weary Blues
Speaker: Langston Hughes |
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