How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Everybody say how good I is to Mr._________ children. I be good to them. But I don’t feel nothing for them. Patting Harpo back not even like patting a dog. It more like patting another piece of wood. Not a living tree, but a table, a chifferobe. Anyhow, they don’t love me neither, no matter how good I is. (17.10)
Celie is dead inside because she doesn’t feel love for a single person now in her life, nor is she loved by any of them. Talk about feeling lonely.
Quote #2
Mr._______ turn his head slow, watch his daddy drink. Then say, real sad, You ain’t got it in you to understand, he say. I love Shug Avery. Always have, always will. I should have married her when I had the chance. (27.11)
Mr.__ proclaims his love for Shug Avery to his father, while Celie watches. At this point in his life, he uses his love for Shug as an excuse to treat everyone else in his life inconsiderately.
Quote #3
Some womens can’t be beat, I say. Sofia one of them. Besides, Sofia love you. She probably be happy to do most of what you say if you ast her right. She not mean, she not spiteful. She don’t hold a grudge.
He sit there hanging his head, looking retard.
Harpo, I say, giving him a shake, Sofia love you. You love Sofia.
He look up at me best he can out his fat little eyes. Yes ma’am? He say.
Mr._______ marry me to take care of his children. I marry him cause my daddy made me. I don’t love Mr.________ and he don’t love me.
But you his wife, he say, just like Sofia mine. The wife spose to mind.
Do Shug Avery mind Mr.__________? I ast. She the woman he wanted to marry. (29.15-21)
Celie tries to get Harpo to see that love in a marriage means a lot more than a loveless marriage where the wife obeys her husband blindly.
Quote #4
I don’t like to go to bed with him no more, she [Sofia] say. Used to be when he touch me I’d go all out my head. Now when he touch me I just don’t want to be bothered. Once he git on top of me I think bout how that’s where he always want to be. She sip her lemonade. I use to love that part of it, she say. I use to chase him home from the field. Git all hot just watching him put the children to bed. But no more. Now I feel tired all the time. No interest.
Now, now, I say. Sleep on it some, maybe it come back. But I say this just to be saying something. I don’t know nothing bout it. Mr.__________ clam on top of me, do his business, in ten minutes us both sleep. Only time I feel something stirring down there is when I think bout Shug. And that like running to the end of the road and it turn back on itself.
You know the worst part? she say. The worst part is I don’t think he notice. He git up there and enjoy himself just the same. No matter what I’m thinking. No matter what I feel. It just him. Heartfeeling don’t even seem to enter into it. She snort. The fact he can do it like that make me want to kill him. (30.15-17)
Sofia has lost love for Harpo, and she doesn’t think he even notices. He enjoys sex whether the woman he’s with loves him or not. Sofia, on the other hand, doesn’t want to have a sexual relationship without love. She doesn’t want sex to just be something physical, but an action involving "heartfeeling."