How we cite our quotes: (Story.Section.Paragraph) or (Story.Paragraph)
Quote #4
She cannot say to him: But they are not me, those women. She cannot say she is jealous of pictures on a page. That she feels invisible. Rejected. Overlooked. She says instead, to herself: He is right. I will grow up. Adjust. Swim with the tide. (Coming Apart.12)
The wife in Walker's "fable" about porn is having a hard time figuring out how to tell her husband what bothers her so much about his magazines. She knows that they make her feel awful, but when she thinks of the reasons why, they sound so…childish. It's ultimately an identity issue: she isn't sure of her role as wife, and she doesn't know how much she can or should push back on her husband's use of porn.
Quote #5
[…] and to her, every black girl of a certain vulnerable age was Holly Monroe. And an even deeper truth was that Holly Monroe was herself. Herself shot down, aborted on the eve of becoming herself. (Abortion.68)
Imani finds that her connection to Holly Monroe has deepened after her second abortion, which takes place immediately before the annual memorial ceremony for the murdered girl. She's truly internalizing the loss of Holly's potential, seeing parallels in her own life. In part, Imani finds herself living a life that is fraudulent: she's not thriving as a married person, as a mother. Stuffing herself into a conventional role has caused her heavy grief and given her a sense that she's lost herself.
Quote #6
For me there was the welfare department every day, attempting to get the necessary food and shelter to people who would always live amid the dirty streets I knew I must soon leave. I was, after all, a Sarah Lawrence girl "with talent." It would be absurd to rot away in a building that had no front door. (Luna.45)
Walker is pretty open about her positive attitude toward her potential and future. It's hard to know if her older self is revealing, tongue in cheek, her youthful arrogance about herself—or if she means what she's saying about her young self without irony. But it's clear that Walker's identification of herself as talented gave her a sense of immunity from the ugliness of life all around her.