“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 Copy Share Image
“Brian darling, I’m really not such an idiot that I don’t realize that if a man calls me a nigger it’s his fault the… — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
“You knew what his opinion of you was, while he -- Well, 'twas ever thus. We know, always have. They don't. Not quite. It has, you will admit, its humorous side, and sometimes, its conveniences.” — Nella Larsen Copy Share
“No, certainly he didn’t. Not actually. He couldn’t, not very well, since he didn’t know. But he would have. It amounts to the same… — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
These people yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color, joy of… — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
“And mingled with her disbelief and resentment was another feeling, a question. Why hadn’t she spoken that day? Why, in the face of Bellew’s ignorant hate and aversion, had she concealed her own origin? Why had she allowed him to make his assertions and express his misconceptions undisputed? Why, simply because of Clare Kendry, who had exposed her to such… — Nella Larsen Copy Share
“But there was, she knew, something else. Happiness, she supposed. Whatever that might be. What, exactly, she wondered, was happiness. Very positively she wanted… — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
“she regarded with an astonishment that had in it a mild degree of amusement the violence of the feelings which it stirred in her.” — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
“This, Irene told her, was the year 1927 in the city of New York, and hundreds of white people of Hugh Wentworth’s type came… — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
that's what everybody wants, just a little more money, even the people who have it. — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
“Not so lonely that that old, queer, unhappy restlessness had begun again within him; that craving for some place strange and different, which at… — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
“After all these years to still blame her like this. Hadn’t his success proved that she’d been right in insisting that he stick to… — Nella Larsen Copy Share Image
