Beloved (1998)

Oprah Winfrey: Sethe

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sethe : I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing inbetween but the daughter I'm holding in my arms.

• Beloved : Where your diamonds?

  Sethe : Diamonds? What would I be doing with diamonds?

  Beloved : On your ears.

  Sethe : Wish I did. Come to think of it, I had some crystal once. Present from the lady I used to work for.

  Beloved : Tell me. Tell me your diamonds.

• Paul D : [after becoming more and more suspicious of Beloved]  Sethe. Sethe, baby, we were starting to feel a little like a family ourself, till she come along.

  Sethe : Is that what got your teeth on edge?

  Paul D : It's a feeling in me. I can't place it. It's her.

  Sethe : You wanna feel something? Feel what it feel like to be a colored woman, roaming the roads, and anything God made liable to jump on you. Feel that!

  Paul D : I know every bit of that, Sethe. I wasn't born yesterday, and I never mistreated a woman in my life.

  Sethe : Well, that makes one of you in this world.

  [Turns to leave] 

  Paul D : One, not two?

  Sethe : [Stops for a moment, then turns and faces Paul D]  No, not two.

  Paul D : What'd Halle ever do to you? Halle stood by you.

  Sethe : Halle ran off. He left me, and he left our children.

  Paul D : You don't know that.

  Sethe : [Angrily]  Who he leave then, if he didn't leave me? He wasn't there! He wasn't where he said he was going to be! I had to pack my babies off ahead of me on their own. Stayed behind to look for him, and got caught by Schoolteacher and his boys for my trouble!

  Paul D : He couldn't get out... the loft, I expect.

  Sethe : Loft? What loft?

  Paul D : The one in the barn, I reckon.

  Sethe : [Trembling with realization]  He... he was there? How do you know?

  Sethe : Morning after you run, I seen Halle chained to a post. I said "What happened? Where you been?" "The loft, the loft, the loft." That's all he said. Could never figure out what he meant by that. He never answered me.

  Sethe : [sighing heavily]  He... he saw them boys do that to me, and he let them keep on breathing?

  Paul D : I... I ask him, "How come you didn't run with Sethe?" He never answered me. I seen him once more, the day Schoolteacher sold me to Brandywine. Takin' me away in the wagon. There Halle was, in the yard, sittin' by the churn. They didn't need to put no chains on him no more. His mind was gone. Sethe... a man ain't a goddamn axe, chopping and hacking, bustin' every minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can't chop down because they're inside. Halle never just run off and leave you, Sethe. You see, you the only one of us who made it out that night. The only one.

  Sethe : [Quickly leaves the room, shaking her head in denial and shock] 

• Sethe : Grandma Baby used to say your daddy was too good for this world. Remember? He was a good man. It scared her. She always used to fret he wasn't gonna make it through nothin'. He made it through a lot. But maybe Grandma Baby was right. Denver, your daddy ain't gonna never show up here. You understand?

  Denver : But...

  Sethe : [Shakes head]  The day ain't gonna never come when Halle knocks on that door. Never.

• Paul D : Your love is too thick, Sethe.

  Sethe : Love is or it isn't, Paul D. Thin love ain't no love at all.

• Denver : How come everybody from Sweet Home can't stop talking about it? Seems to me if it was so sweet, you wouldn't have run away.

  Sethe : Girl, who you think you talking to?

  Paul D : No, she's right, Sethe. It wasn't sweet, and it sure wasn't home.

• Paul D : Your boys run off, don't know where. One girl's dead, the other one can't get further than the yard. So how did it "work?"

  Sethe : They ain't at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain't got them.

  Paul D : Maybe there's worse.

  Sethe : [angrily]  It ain't my job to know what's worse, Paul D. It's to know what's out there and to keep my children from it! Because I would rather know they're at peace in Heaven than living a hell here on Earth! So help me, Jesus!

• Sethe : You came back to me...

• Paul D : [as Paul D enters Sethe's home, he is met with a pulsating glow of red light and backs away in fear]  Good God, girl. What kind of evil you got in there?

  Sethe : It ain't evil. Just sad.