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If Beale Street Could Talk Quotes

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

If Beale Street Could Talk Quotes
"I'm tired, and I'm beginning to think that maybe everything that happens makes sense. Like, if it didn't make sense, how could it happen?"
"I always remember now, because he's in jail and I love his eyes and every time I see him I'm afraid I'll never see him again."
"I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass."
"You see: I know him. He’s very proud, and he worries a lot."
"I should have said already: we’re not married. That means more to him than it does to me, but I understand how he feels."
"But, then, you just have to somehow fix your mind to get from one day to the next."
"Being in trouble can have a funny effect on the mind."
"Sometimes I take the subway home, sometimes I take the bus. Today, I took the bus because it takes a little longer and I had a lot on my mind."
"It’s true that I haven’t seen much of other cities, only Philadelphia and Albany, but I swear that New York must be the ugliest and the dirtiest city in the world."
"Fonny asked me, one Saturday, if I could come to church with him in the morning and I said, Yes."
"It’s funny what you hold on to to get through terror when terror surrounds you."
"It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you."
"Only a man can see in the face of a woman the girl she was."
"It doesn’t do to look too hard into this mystery, which is as far from being simple as it is from being safe."
"It’s astounding the first time you realize that a stranger has a body – the realization that he has a body makes him a stranger."
"But a man exists in his own imagination, and can never be at the mercy of a woman’s."
"The truth is that dealing with the reality of men leaves a woman very little time, or need, for imagination."
"But I wondered how Frank would take the news that his son, Fonny, was about to be a father."
"Fonny took me in his arms and settled me on his lap and kissed me on the forehead and rubbed his hand, at first roughly and then very gently through my hair. ‘You’re a good girl, Clementine,’ he said. ‘I’m proud of you. Don’t you forget that.’"
"‘The Lord sure works in mysterious ways.’"
"If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now."
"The truth of a case doesn’t matter. What matters is – who wins."
"The only way anything ever gets done is when you make up your mind to do it."
"What can get worse can get better; and that what can get better can get worse."
"We’re counting on you – Fonny’s counting on you, to bring that baby here, safe and well."
"That white man, baby, and may his balls shrivel and his ass-hole rot, he want you to be worried about the money. That’s his whole game."
"The baby cannot get here without me. And, while I may have known this, in one way, a little while ago, now the baby knows it, and tells me that while it will certainly be worse, once it leaves the water, what gets worse can also get better."
"I know about suffering; if that helps. I know that it ends."
"But now he knows why he is here – why he is where he is; now, he dares to look around him. He is not here for anything he has done."
"He is fighting for his life. He sees his baby's face before him, he has an appointment he must keep, and he will be here, he swears it, sitting in the shit, sweating and stinking, when the baby gets here."
"The sky was as still as the sky; my mother's face was as still as the sky."
"And then I screamed, and my time had come."
"We got to get some meat on your bones,' I said. 'Lord, have mercy.'"
"Hayward arranges the possibility of bail for Fonny. But it is high. And here comes the summertime."
"There are murderers outside, and rapists, with their hands full with all they have to do, doing much; thieves, true perverts, college boys carrying attaché cases, busy, busy, busy, doing much."
"If I am somewhat terrified by the fact that I no longer have anything which can be called a waistline, he is delighted. 'Here she come! Big as two houses! You sure it ain't twins? or triplets? Shit, we might make history.'"
"The sky was the colour of the steel; the heavy tears drip down Fonny’s face, causing the stubble on his face to itch."
"It's hard, but I just want for you to bear in mind that they can make us lose each other by putting me in the shit – or, they can try to make us lose each other by making you try to protect me from it."