How we cite our quotes: In consultation with my editor, we decided (against standard practice) to go with page numbers—since The Sunset Limited is one long act and it would be unwieldy and impractical to number all the lines.
Quote #1
WHITE: Do you really think that Jesus is in this room?
BLACK: No. I don't think he's in this room.
WHITE: You don't?
BLACK: I know he's in the room. […] It's the way you put it, Professor. Be like me askin you do you think you got your coat on. You see what I'm sayin? (10-11)
Black feels he's so in touch with the Spirit that he's gone from thinking and believing to something like knowledge. As he implies later, he's come to the "well of belief," and doesn't need to doubt or go any farther.
Quote #2
WHITE: Do you hear him? Like out loud?
BLACK: Not out loud. I dont hear a voice. I dont hear my own, for that matter. But I have heard him.
WHITE: Well why couldn't Jesus just be in your head?
BLACK: He is in my head.
WHITE: Well I don't understand what it is that you're trying to tell me? (13)
Black means that Jesus speaks as a presence living within him. He's like the Quakers who believe in the Inner Light, a.k.a. that God is in each of us.
Quote #3
WHITE: Well, I'm sorry, but to me the whole idea of God is just a load of crap."
The black puts his hand to his chest and leans back.
BLACK: Oh Lord have mercy oh save us Jesus. The professor's done blasphemed all over us. We aint never gonna be saved now.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head, laughing silently.
WHITE: You don't find that an evil thing to say.
BLACK: Oh Mercy. No, Professor. I don't. But you does. (63)
Black doesn't find it an evil thing to say, probably because he finds that it's an expression of genuine human pain and disconnection. He thinks White must find it evil, though, because that's the thrill of saying it—it's fun to say bad things.
Quote #4
BLACK: Belief aint like unbelief. If you a believer then you got to come finally to the well of belief itself and then you dont have to look no further. There aint no further. But the unbeliever has got a problem. He has set out to unravel the world, but everything he can point to that aint true leaves two new things layin there. If God walked the earth when he got done makin it then when you get up in the morning you get to put your feet on a real floor and you dont have to worry about where it come from. But if he didnt then you got to come up with a whole other description of what you even mean by real. And you got to judge everything by that same light. If light it is. Includin yourself. One question fits all. So what do you think, Professor? Is you real? (65-66)
What do you think the "well of belief" is? It's probably God himself, in a sense, since God is the focus of belief, the source it comes from and wants to return to. From this angle, you'd be having some direct contact with God if you actually reached that well.
Quote #5
WHITE: What is it you would disagree with?
BLACK: Maybe the notion of original sin. When Eve eat the apple and it turned everybody bad. I dont see people that way. I think for the most part people are good to start with. I think evil is somethin you bring on your own self. Mostly from wantin what you aint supposed to have. But I aint goin to sit here and tell you about me bein a heretic when I'm tryin to get you to quit bein one. (66-67)
Black explains one of his heresies: He doesn't believe that people are bad at their root, but that they get corrupted. Goodness might not be something you learn, but evil probably is.
Quote #6
BLACK: […] The whole point of where this is goin—which you wanted to know—is that they aint no jews. Aint no whites. Aint no n*****s. People of color. Aint none of that. At the deep bottom of the mine where the gold is at there aint none of that. There's just the pure ore. That forever thing. That you dont think is there. That thing that helps to keep folks nailed down to the platform when the Sunset Limited comes through. Even when they think they might want to get aboard. That thing that makes it possible to ladle out benedictions upon the heads of strangers instead of curses. It's all the same thing. And it aint but one thing. Just one. (95)
This is one of Black's biggest speeches. He thinks that what we are externally—our races, genders, class backgrounds—doesn't make up who we really are. When you get down to it, there's a shared humanity amongst us.
Quote #7
BLACK: […] I would say that the thing we are talkin about is Jesus, but it is Jesus understood as that gold at the bottom of the mine. He couldnt come down here to take the form of a man if that form wasnt done shaped to accommodate him. And if I said that there aint no way for Jesus to be ever man without ever man bein Jesus then I believe that might be a pretty big heresy. But that's all right. It aint as big a heresy as sayin that a man aint all that much different from a rock. Which is how your view looks to me. (95)
Black accuses White of believing that people aren't different from rocks, because if they don't have souls or aren't at one with the "forever thing" (95), then what's the difference? He thinks every human needs to be Jesus (or part of Jesus), because Jesus couldn't become a human if a human was something entirely unlike God.
Quote #8
BLACK: I said: Please help me. And he did. […] Well. That's my story, Professor. It's easy told. I dont make a move without Jesus. When I get up in the morning I just try to get ahold of his belt. Oh, ever once in a while I'll catch myself slippin into manual override. But I catch myself. I catch myself.
WHITE: Manual override?
BLACK: You like that?
WHITE: It's okay. (107-108)
"Manual override" refers to the tendency of trying to imagine that you're still in control. It's the illusion that the ego is in charge.
Quote #9
BLACK: […] You just have to be quiet. I cant speak for the Lord but the experience I've had leads me to believe that he'll speak to anybody that'll listen. You damn sure aint got to be virtuous. (109)
If you can be quiet on the inside, Black believes that's the same as surrendering to God—you're putting aside your own intellect and stopping your attempts to sort out the world. It creates the kind of conditions where it might make sense for God to speak to you.
Quote #10
WHITE: […] Show me a religion that prepares one for death. For nothingness. There's a church I might enter. Yours prepares one only for more life. For dreams and illusions and lies… You tell me that my brother is my salvation? My salvation? Well then damn him. Damn him in every shape and form and guise. Do I see myself in him? Yes. I do. And what I see sickens me. Do you understand me? Can you understand me? (138)
White wants his brother damned because he thinks life itself is a kind of disease that must be stopped—if love for other people will keep him stuck in life, he wants them condemned.
Quote #11
BLACK: That's all right. That's all right. If you never speak again you know I'll keep your word. You know I will. You know I'm good for it.
He lifts his head.
BLACK: Is that okay? Is that okay? (142-143)
Black ends by telling God he'll still obey him and keep his word. When he asks if that's okay, it's like he's asking if there's something else he might need to do, something he hasn't thought of, some key he's missing.