Zora Neale Hurston Quotes - Page 7

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Gods always love the people who make 'em.

Zora Neale Hurston

People, Ems

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.223, Feminist Press at CUNY

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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.

Zora Neale Hurston

Life, Eye, Soul

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.153, Feminist Press at CUNY

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A great state is a well-blended mash of something of all the people and all of none of the people. The liquor of statecraft is distilled from the mash you got.

Zora Neale Hurston

People, Justice, Diversity

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”

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Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.

Zora Neale Hurston

Life, Thinking, People

"Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography".

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When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.

Zora Neale Hurston

Song, Angel, Jealous

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Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches

Zora Neale Hurston

Tree, Dawn, Done

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.12, University of Illinois Press

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It would be against all nature for all the Negroes to be either at the bottom, top, or in between. We will go where the internal drive carries us like everybody else. It is up to the individual.

Zora Neale Hurston

Would Be, Individual, Bottom

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

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The man who interprets Nature is always held in great honor.

Zora Neale Hurston

Men, Honor

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

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I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.

Zora Neale Hurston

White, Race, Racism

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.154, Feminist Press at CUNY

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Affection makes your spirit slither out from its concealing spot.

Zora Neale Hurston

Spirit, Affection, Spots

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They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.

Zora Neale Hurston

Towns, Eyes Watching

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.61, University of Illinois Press

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Like the dead-seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.

Zora Neale Hurston

Memories, Rocks, Cold

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.28, Feminist Press at CUNY

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I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.

Zora Neale Hurston

Life, Sorry, Pain

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

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If science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than the gestures of ceremony.

Zora Neale Hurston

Giving, Secret, Important

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.67, Feminist Press at CUNY

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The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles a hour wind had loosed his chains. He seized hold of his dikes and ran forward until he met the quarters; uprooted them like grass and rushed on after his supposed-to-be conquerors, rolling the dikes, rolling the houses, rolling the people in the houses along with other timbers. The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel.

Zora Neale Hurston

Wind, Sea, Two

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”

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When Janie looked out of her door she saw the drifting mists gathered in the west -- that cloud field of the sky -- to arm themselves with thunders and march forth against the world. Louder and higher and lower and wider the sound and motion spread, mounting, sinking, darking.

Zora Neale Hurston

Doors, Sky, Clouds

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.189, University of Illinois Press

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But as de old folk always say, Ah'm born but Ah ain't dead. No tellin' whut Ah'm liable tuh do yet.

Zora Neale Hurston

Liable, Born, Folks

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.128, University of Illinois Press

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It is hard to apply oneself to study when there is no money to pay for food and lodging. I almost never explain these things when folks are asking me why I don't do this or that.

Zora Neale Hurston

Education, Asking, Pay

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I do not share the gloomy thought that Negroes in America are doomed to be stomped out bodaciously, nor even shackled to the bottom of things. Of course some of them will be tromped out, and some will always be at the bottom, keeping company with other bottom-folks.

Zora Neale Hurston

America, Share, Gloomy

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She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.

Zora Neale Hurston

Dream, Making Love, Firsts

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.249, Feminist Press at CUNY

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To avoid the consequences of posterity the mulattos give the blacks a first class letting alone. There is a frantic stampede white-ward to escape from Jamaica's black mass.

Zora Neale Hurston

Jamaica, Class, White

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.125, Feminist Press at CUNY

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I thought that when they said Atlantic Charter, that meant me and everybody in Africa and Asia and everywhere. But it seems like the Atlantic is an ocean that does not touch anywhere but North America and Europe.

Zora Neale Hurston

Ocean, Europe, America

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.165, Feminist Press at CUNY

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To a haughty belly, kindness is hard to swallow and harder to digest.

Zora Neale Hurston

Kindness, Harder, Belly

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”

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I regret all of my books.

Zora Neale Hurston

Regret, Book, I Regret

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.71, Feminist Press at CUNY

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I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.

Zora Neale Hurston

Mother, Native American, African American

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.152, Feminist Press at CUNY

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

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