Zora Neale Hurston Quotes

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If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.

Zora Neale Hurston

Pain, Silent, Harlem Renaissance

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Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.

Zora Neale Hurston

Inspiring, Happiness, Success

Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (1979). “I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader”, p.155, Feminist Press at CUNY

296 Copy quote
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Zora Neale Hurston

Life, Inspiring, Time

Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (1979). “I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader”, p.246, Feminist Press at CUNY

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I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.

Zora Neale Hurston

Courage, Reality, Nerves

221 Copy quote
Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

Zora Neale Hurston

Writing, Science, Curiosity

Zora Neale Hurston, Cheryl A. Wall (1997). “Sweat”, p.43, Rutgers University Press

160 Copy quote
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

Zora Neale Hurston

Love, Inspirational, Life

239 Copy quote
There's two things everybody got to find out for themselves: they got to find out about love, and they got to find out about living. Now, love is like the sea. It's a moving thing. And it's different on every shore. And living... well... There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Zora Neale Hurston

Moving, Love Is, Years

29 Copy quote
Such as I am, I am a precious gift.

Zora Neale Hurston

Giving, Precious Gifts

106 Copy quote
If you haven't got it, you can't show it. If you have got it, you can't hide it.

Zora Neale Hurston

Personality, Following Your Own Path, Shows

Zora Neale Hurston (1969). “Dust tracks on a road”

132 Copy quote
Learning without wisdom is a load of books on a donkey's back.

Zora Neale Hurston

Wisdom, Book, Donkey

Zora Neale Hurston (1939). “Moses: Man of the Mountain”

46 Copy quote
I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

Zora Neale Hurston

Strong, Hurt, Dirty

World Tomorrow "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928)

210 Copy quote
Justice, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Zora Neale Hurston

Beauty, Beautiful, Eye

Zora Neale Hurston (1969). “Dust tracks on a road”

105 Copy quote
All my skinfolk ain't kinfolk.

Zora Neale Hurston

Kinfolk

176 Copy quote
The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.

Zora Neale Hurston

Past, Eggs, Shells

Zora Neale Hurston (1995). “The Complete Stories”, HarperCollins Publishers

28 Copy quote
I will fight for my country, but I will not lie for her.

Zora Neale Hurston

Country, Lying, Fighting

97 Copy quote
Once you wake up thought in a man, you can never put it to sleep again.

Zora Neale Hurston

Motivational, Sleep, Men

Zora Neale Hurston (1995). “Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories: Jonah's Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Selected Stories”

118 Copy quote
It's no use of talking unless people understand what you say.

Zora Neale Hurston

Talking, People, Use

Zora Neale Hurston (1995). “Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories: Jonah's Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Selected Stories”

20 Copy quote
You got to go there to know there.

Zora Neale Hurston

Knows

57 Copy quote
Everybody has some special road of thought along which they travel when they are alone to themselves. And his road of thought is what makes every man what he is.

Zora Neale Hurston

Men, Special, Every Man

Zora Neale Hurston (1939). “Moses: Man of the Mountain”

53 Copy quote
Tell me, and then again show me, so I can know.

Zora Neale Hurston

Show Me, Shows, Knows

Zora Neale Hurston (1995). “Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories: Jonah's Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Selected Stories”

18 Copy quote
Bitterness is the coward's revenge on the world for having been hurt.

Zora Neale Hurston

Hurt, Revenge, Coward

133 Copy quote
Gods always behave like the people who make them.

Zora Neale Hurston

Motivational, God, Atheist

121 Copy quote
An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.

Zora Neale Hurston

Heart, Ears, Envious

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.8, University of Illinois Press

16 Copy quote
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

Zora Neale Hurston

Mothers Day, Mom, Children

Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (1979). “I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader”, p.33, Feminist Press at CUNY

71 Copy quote
That is the way with people ... If they do you wrong, they invent a bad name for you, a good name for their acts and then destroy you in the name of virtue.

Zora Neale Hurston

Names, People, Prejudice

Zora Neale Hurston (1995). “Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories: Jonah's Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Selected Stories”

102 Copy quote

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Born: January 7, 1891
Died: January 28, 1960
Occupation: Anthropologist
Cite this Page: Citation

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