“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

“If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble...”

“For I amor I wasone of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People...”

“Whether in private debate or in public, any attempt I made to explain how the Black Muslim movement came about, and how it has achieved such force, was met with a blankness that revealed the little...”

“We look at each other a second. " I'm tired of the rules," I say. Aibileen chuckles and looks out the window. I realise how thin this revelation must sound to her.”

“In terms of sex between same-sex partners, the objection that "the parts don't fit" doesnt make sense on even the most logical level. If the parts didn't work together, frankly, people wouldn't be ...”

“It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to distance ourselves from our own beliefs so that we can dispassion...”