Perhaps she was both child and woman, darkness and light, past and present, life and death - all the opposites contained and reconciled in her.

- Paule Marshall

I question whether I want to be integrated into America as it stands now, with its complacency and materialism, its soullessness.

- Paule Marshall

My very first lessons in the art of telling stories took place in the kitchen . . . my mother and three or four of her friends. . . told stories. . .…

- Paule Marshall

I realise that it is fashionable now to dismiss the traditional novel as something of an anachronism, but to me it is still a vital form. Not only do…

- Paule Marshall

A person can run for years but sooner or later he has to take a stand in the place which, for better or worse, he calls home, and do what he can to c…

- Paule Marshall

We live surrounded by white images, and white in this world is synonymous with the good, light, beauty, success, so that, despite ourselves sometimes…

- Paule Marshall

Once a great wrong has been done, it never dies. People speak the words of peace, but their hearts do not forgive. Generations perform ceremonies of …

- Paule Marshall

But sometimes it's necessary to go back before you can go forward, really forward.

- Paule Marshall

Sometimes a person has to go back, really back-to have a sense, an understanding of all that's gone to make them-before they can go forward.

- Paule Marshall