Nella Quotes & Sayings

That's what everybody wants, just a little more money, even the people who have it. — Nella Larsen

For several years, while I searched for, found, and studied black women writers, I deliberately shut O'Connor out, feeling almost ashamed that she had reached me first. And yet, even when I no longer read her, I missed her, and realized that though the rest of America might not mind, having endured it so long, I would never be satisfied with a segregated literature. I would have to read Zora Hurston and Flannery O'Connor, Nella Larsen and Carson McCullers, Jean Toomer and William Faulkner, before I could begin to feel well read at all. — Alice Walker

The trouble with Clare was, not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well. — Nella Larsen

What are friends for, if not to help bear our sins? — Nella Larsen

But she did not look the future in the face. She wanted to feel nothing, to think nothing; simply to believe that it was all silly invention on her part. Yet she could not. Not quite. — Nella Larsen

If sex isn't a joke, what is it? — Nella Larsen

Somewhere, within her, in a deep recess, crouched discontent. She began to lose confidence in the fullness of her life, the glow began to fade from her conception of it. As the days multiplied, her need of something, something vaguely familiar, but which she could not put a name to and hold for definite examination, became almost intolerable. She went through moments of overwhelming anguish. She felt shut in, trapped. — Nella Larsen

Children aren't everything. There are other things in the world, thought I admit some people don't seem to suspect it. — Nella Larsen

To each his own milieu. Enhance what was already in one's possession. — Nella Larsen

Ouma Nella's quotes p 144 -146
"Man, if you don't know where you going, any road will bring you there."
"It don't matter how far a river run. It never forget where it come from. That is all that is important."
"No matter if it's wet or dry," she grunt. "As long as you keep a green branch in your heart, there will always be a bird that come to sing in it."
"It's no use crying in the rain, my child, because no one will see your tears.
"Don't think you can climb two trees at the same time just because you got two legs."
"Ouma Nella, where am I not?"
"But you're right here with me, Philida. So there's many places where you're not."
"Tell me where those places are. I got to know. So I can go and look for myself. — Andre Brink

She hated to admit that money was the most serious difficulty. Knowing full well that it was important, she nevertheless rebelled at the unalterable truth that it could influence her actions, block her desires. A sordid necessity to be grappled with. — Nella Larsen

It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didn't matter, if no one knew. — Nella Larsen

Have you ever stopped to think how much unhappiness and downright cruelty are laid to the loving kindness of the Lord? And always by His most ardent followers, it seems. — Nella Larsen

Nella vita: chi non risica, non rosica," he said finally, his voice quiet. "In life: nothing ventured, nothing gained. My mom used to tell us that. It's been a long time, but I can still hear her saying it. — J.M. Darhower

So when do we get married?" Rio asked, nuzzling her cheek. "This Bond thing is telling me to hurry up."
"You truly want it?"
He caught her gaze, his own softening. "Yes."
Nella's heart swelled with warmth, happiness. "Right away. Tomorrow, if you want."
"Good. We'll do it fast, then break it to your mother and father that you Bonded with a Shareem."
"They will already know," Nella said, laughing. "Everything that happens in the Gallery of Light is broadcast throughout the palace. The news of our Bonding will probably be all over the feeds by morning."
"Shit," Rio said, then he grinned. "Good thing I've got a great ass."
"It's beautiful."
"Glad you like it. — Allyson James

It was only that she wanted him to be happy, resenting, however, his inability to be so with things as they were, and never acknowledging that though she did want him to be happy, it was only in her own way and by some plan of hers for him that she truly desired him to be so. — Nella Larsen

Growing older does not seem to make you more certain, Nella thinks. It simply presents you with more reasons for doubt. — Jessie Burton

Authors do not supply imaginations, they expect their readers to have their own, and to use it — Nella Larsen

It's a great blessing if one can lose all sense of time, all worries, if only for a short time, in a book. — Nella Last

Through pain and growth, I have come to appreciate -no, more than that-I've come to love my fence, even though it may be different than the neighbors'. The concept of perfection is not flawless or ripped from a magazine. It's happiness. Happiness with all itsmessiness and not-quite-thereness. It's knowing that life is short, and the moments we choose to fill our cup wiht should be purposeful and rich. That we should be present for life, that we should drink deeply. And that's perfection. And my dad and my mom and my family-my past, present, and future with Nella, what the world may view as broken or damaged-have taught me what true beauty really is. — Kelle Hampton

If you love a person in the real sense, you want them to be happy, not take them like butter and spread them thinly over your own bread, to make it more palatable for yourself. — Nella Last

I feel like the oldest person in the world with the longest stretch of life before me. — Nella Larsen

These people yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color, joy of rhythmic motion, naive, spontaneous laughter. Harmony, radiance, and simplicity, all the essentials of spiritual beauty in the race they had marked for destructions. — Nella Larsen

And yet she hadn't the air of a woman whose life had been touched by uncertainty or suffering. Pain, fear, and grief were things that left their mark on people. Even love, that exquisite torturing emotion, left its subtle traces on the countenance. — Nella Larsen

Incited. That was it, the guidingprinciple of her life in Copenhagen. She was incited to make an impression, a voluptous impression. She was incited to inflame attention and admiration. She was dressed for it, subtly schooled for it. And after a little while she gave herself up wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired. — Nella Larsen

As she starts crushing the nuts and cloves, the maid's whispering, her air of secrety and conviction tastes more delicious to Nella than the pasty on her plate. — Jessie Burton

She wished to find out about this hazardous business of "passing," this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one's chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly. — Nella Larsen

But there was, she knew, something else. Happiness, she supposed. Whatever that might be. What, exactly, she wondered, was happiness. Very positively she wanted it. — Nella Larsen

Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. (There is no greater pain than to remember a happy time when one is in misery.) — Dante Alighieri

Above their rooftops Nature is doing her best to keep up, and the clouds in colors of saffron and apricot echo the spoils of the glorious republic. Nella — Jessie Burton

Lies, injustice, and hypocrisy are a part of every ordinary community. Most people achieve a sort of protective immunity, a kind of callousness, toward them. If they didn't, they couldn't endure. — Nella Larsen

Well, what of it? If sex isn't a joke, what is it — Nella Larsen

What are we all chasing? Nella wonders. To live, of course. To be unbound from the invisible ropes that Johannes spoke of in his study. Or to be happy in them, at least. — Jessie Burton

When you have truly come to know a person, Nella -- when you see beneath the sweeter gestures, the smiles -- when you see the rage and the pitiful fear which each of us hide -- then forgiveness is everything. We are all in desperate need of it. — Jessie Burton

I think being a mother is the cruelest thing in the world. — Nella Larsen

Everything can't be explained by some general biological phrase. — Nella Larsen

New York's the lonesomest place in the world if you don't know anybody. — Nella Larsen

She isn't stupid. She's intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn't made the mistake of being born a Negro. — Nella Larsen

The night darkens, the stars unfriendly, the cold a knife upon her neck - but Nella waits, until she can no longer difference between Johannes and the darkness that carries him away. — Jessie Burton