Quotes from Zora Neale Hurston

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

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

I love myself when I am laughing. . . and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.

Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.

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.

If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all.

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.

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.

All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

Love is like the sea. It's a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.

She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.

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.

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

Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.

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

It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.

No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.

Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it.

She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.

She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.

She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.

Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.

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.