Beloved

"Suspended between the nastiness of life andthe meanness of hte dead, she couldn't get interested in leaving life or living it, let alone the firght of two creeping-off boys. Her past had been like her present - intolerable - and since she knew death was anything ut forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her for pondering color" (4).

"'Well, long enough to see Baby Suggs, anyway. Where is she?'
'Dead.'
'Aw no. When?'
'Eight years now. Almost nine.'
'Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.'
Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part'" (8).

"and it embarassed them and made them sad; that secretly they longed to die - to be quit of it - that sleep was more precious to them than any waking day" (20).

“They killed a boss so often and so completely they had to bring him back to life to pulp him one more time. Tasting hot mealcake among the pine trees, they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt who folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only when she was dead would they be safe” (pg 128).

“He laughs. A rippling sound like Sethe’s sons make when they tumble in hay or splash in rainwater. His feet are cooking; the cloth of his trousers smokes. He laughs. Something is funny. Paul D guesses what it is when Sixo interrupts his laughter to call out, ‘Seven-O! Seven-O!’ Smoky, stubborn fire. They shoot him to shut him up. Have to” (pg. 267).

“Such thoughts of mortality were not new to him (he was over seventy now), but they still had the power to annoy. As he drew closer to the old homestead, the place that continued to surface in his dreams, he was even more aware of the way time moved. Measured by the wars he had lived through but not fought in (against the Miami, the Spaniards, the Secessionists), it was slow” (pg. 307).