- Celie: [on leaving the farm in Shug's car, shouting to Albert] I'm poor, black, I may even be ugly, but dear God, I'm here. I'm here!
- Sophia: All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I'd have to fight in my own house!
- Sofia: Sat in that jail, I sat in that jail til I near about done rot to death. I know what it like to wanna go somewhere and cain't. I know what it like to wanna sing... and have it beat out 'ya. I want to thank you, Miss Celie, fo everything you done for me. I 'members that day in the store with Miss Millie - I's feelin' real down. I's feelin' mighty bad. And when I seed you - I know'd there is a God. I know'd there is a God.
- Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
- Celie: You saying God is vain?
- Shug: Nah, nah. Not vain. Just wantin' to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field and you don't notice it.
- Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the Bible?
- Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention - except walk?
- [they laugh]
- Shug: Oh Miss Celie, I feels like singing!
- Sofia: [after telling Celie she knows how she feels] Oh... Sofia home, now. Sofia home. Things is gonna be changin' around here. Pass me them peas, boy.
- Celie: [lunging towards Albert with a knife] I curse you. Until you do right by me everything you think about is gonna crumble!
- Sofia: Don't do it Mrs. Celie. Don't trade places with what I been through.
- Shug: Come on, Celie, let's go to the car.
- Sofia: He ain't worth it, he ain't worth it.
- Albert: Who you think you is? You can curse nobody. Look at you. Your black, you're poor, you're ugly, you're a woman, you're nothing at all!
- Celie: Until you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna fail!
- Grady: It's been a pleasure meeting all of you. Good-bye.
- Celie: Shug like honey - and now, I's just like a bee. I's follow her everywhere, want to go where she go. What life like for her? And why she sometime get so sad? So sad, just like me.
- Pa Harris: [as he snatches away Celie newborn daughter] You better not tell nobody but God. It'll kill yo mama.
- Old Mr.: Celie, you has my sympathy. Ain't many women allow they husband's ho to lay up in they house.
- Shug: [after telling Albert that she and her husband are leaving] Celie is coming with us.
- Albert: What?
- Shug: Celie is coming with us to Memphis.
- Albert: Over my dead body.
- Shug: You satisfied? That what you want?
- Albert: [to Celie] NOW What's wrong with you?
- Celie: You a low down dirty dog, that's what's wrong. Time for me to get away from you, and enter into Creation. And your dead body'd be just the welcome mat I need.
- Old Mr.: Boy, you goin' let this ol' nappy-headed girl cuss you out like that? You sittin' at the head of your own dinner table and actin' like the waiter!
- Celie: [Celie confronts Albert] Nettie and my kids be comin' home soon, and when they get here we gonna' set around and whip your ass.
- Old Mr.: What is it with this Shug Avery? She black as tar, nappy-headed. She got Iegs like baseball bats.
- Squeak: Harpo! Who dis woman?
- Harpo: Now come now, you know who this is.
- Squeak: She best'a leave you alone.
- Sophia: Fine with me.
- Harpo: [to Sophia] You ain't got to go nowhere. Dis here my juke-joint.
- Squeak: [to Harpo] You said dis here our juke-joint!
- Harpo: Listen woman, can't a man dance with his wife if he wants to?
- Squeak: Not if she a heifer!
- [to Sophia]
- Squeak: And not if he my man! You just a big ol heifer. Ha Ha Ha.
- Sophia: [to Squeak] Like I said, fine with me!
- Celie: I got children. My children, they're living in Africa. Africa. Learning different languages. Fresh air and plenty of exercise. And they're gonna turn out a heap better than these FOOLS you never tried to raise.
- Harpo: Now hold on here!
- Celie: No hold on here, Harpo. If you hadn't tried to rule over Sofia, white folks never would have gotten her.
- Harpo: That's a lie! Now that's a lie!
- Celie: It's the truth isn't it? Y'all was rotten kids. You was. You was rotten kids. Made my life here hell. Course your daddy ain't nothing but some dead... HORSESHIT.
- Shug: Oh, Celie. Miss Celie, why you always covering up your smile? Show me some teeth. Show me that pretty smile. Oh, girl, you need a smiling lesson.
- Celie: [to herself, after Shug shouts Albert's first name when she throws the burned food out of the bedroom] Albert?
- Nettie: Don't let them run over you. Show them who's got the upper hand.
- Young Celie: They got it.
- Nettie: You got to fight, Celie. You got to!
- Young Celie: I don't know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.
- Pa Harris: I can't let you have Nettie. She too young. But I tell you what. I can let you have Celie. She oldest and should marry first. She ain't fresh, but I expect you know that. She's spoiled, twice. Celie is ugly but she works hard, and she can Iearn.
- Shug: [singing] Now God made him an elephant, Made him stout, Wasn't satisfied till he made him a snout...
- Shug: Whoo! The song I'm about to sing is called, "Miss Celie's Blues." Because she scratched it out of my head when I was ailing.
- [singing]
- Shug: Sister, you've been on my mind, Oh, sister, we're two of a kind, So sister, I'm keeping my eyes on you, I bet you think I don't know nothing, But singing the blues, Oh, sister, have I got news for you, I'm something, I hope you think, That you're something too...
- Buster: Hey, I don't fight my woman's battles. My job is to love her and take her where she want to go.
- Shug: Lord, have mercy! Firemen ain't gonna get it, somebody call the Iaw! You can light a fire without a match. You can catch a fish without a hook. You can make a blind man see. Oh! Now do your shimmy. Shake your shimmy, girl! Come on! Yeah! Show me your stuff!