Zora Neale Hurston Quotes - Page 7

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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.

Zora Neale Hurston

Two, Two Things, Eyes Watching

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.230, University of Illinois Press

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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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Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.

Zora Neale Hurston

Love, Singing, May

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.20, Feminist Press at CUNY

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She's got those big black eyes with plenty shiny white in them that makes them shine like brand new money and she knows what God gave women eyelashes for, too. Her hair is not what you might call straight. It's negro hair, but it's got a kind of white flavor. Like the piece of string out of a ham. It's not ham at all, but it's been around ham and got the flavor.

Zora Neale Hurston

Eye, Hair, White

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.82, University of Illinois Press

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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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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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The inference is, that God has restated the superiority of the West. God always does like that when a thousand white people surround one dark one. Dark people are always "bad" when they do not admit the Divine Plan like that. A certain Javanese man who sticks up for Indonesian Independence is very lowdown by the papers, and suspected of being a Japanese puppet.

Zora Neale Hurston

Dark, Men, 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.166, Feminist Press at CUNY

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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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Look lak she been livin' through uh hundred years in January without one day of spring.

Zora Neale Hurston

Spring, Years, One Day

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.23, 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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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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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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Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear, and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom.

Zora Neale Hurston

Fear, Men, Suffering

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.174, University of Illinois Press

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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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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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I been through living for years. I just ain't dead yet.

Zora Neale Hurston

Years, Emptiness

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 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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Affection makes your spirit slither out from its concealing spot.

Zora Neale Hurston

Spirit, Affection, Spots

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Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun.

Zora Neale Hurston

Morning, Towns, Sun

Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, p.62, University of Illinois Press

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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.

Zora Neale Hurston

Wall, Eye, Dark

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I have a strong suspicion . that much that passes for constant love is a golded- up moment walking in its sleep.

Zora Neale Hurston

Strong, Sleep, Love Is

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

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