Zora Neale Hurston famous quotes

It is a curious thing to be a woman in the Caribbean after you have been a woman in these United States.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#United States #Curious #Gender

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Love #Inspirational #Life

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Writing #Science #Curiosity

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

#Happiness #Inspiring #Success

Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Granddaughter #Black #Elbows

How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Pleasure #Deny #Company

Sweat, sweat, sweat! Work and sweat, cry and sweat, pray and sweat!
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Sweat #Praying #Cry

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

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.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Life #Dream #Women

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Life #Inspiring #Time

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

#Pain #Silent

A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Distance #Insightful #Bigs

It seems to me to be true that heavens are placed in the sky because it is the unreachable. The unreachable and therefore the unknowable always seems divine--hence, religion. People need religion because the great masses fear life and its consequences. Its responsibilities weigh heavy. Feeling a weakness in the face of great forces, men seek an alliance with omnipotence to bolster up their feeling of weakness, even though the omnipotence they rely upon is a creature of their own minds. It gives them a feeling of security.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Responsibility #Men #Omnipotence

Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Life #Ocean #People

When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Love #Comfort #Dinner

I love myself when I am laughing.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Love #Laughing #I Love Myself

Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Moving #Men #Comfort

Bitterness is the coward's revenge on the world for having been hurt.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Hurt #Revenge #Coward

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

#Mom #Mother #Children

If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Feelings #Abuse #Doing Things For Others

People can be slave-ships in shoes.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Shoes #People #Ships

It's a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Funny #People #Risk

When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Nice #People #Looks

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

#Spring #Years #One Day

I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background........Beside the waters of the Hudson" I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again." How It Feels to Be Colored Me
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Dark #White #Race

I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy. I had been through Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay and the whole slew of dime novelists in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing. Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Regret #Book #Reading

So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Moon #Amber #Earth

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.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Light #People #Dusk

No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Bereavement #Eternity #Hours

There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Sight #Feelings #Mind

She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Found

Love, I find, is like singing.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Love Is #Singing

Mystery is the essence of divinity
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Essence #Divinity #Mystery

Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Soul #Horizon #World

...she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see...
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#People #Faces #Wanted

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

#Book #Heaven #World

Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Made #Persons

All my skinfolk ain't kinfolk.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Kinfolk

No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Words Of Wisdom #African American #Matter

It is one of the blessings of this world that few people see visions and dream dreams.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Dream #Blessing #People

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

Anybody depending on somebody else's gods is depending on a fox not to eat chickens.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Foxes #Chickens

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Knives #Oysters #World

It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Friendship #Good Morning #Coffee

Perhaps it is just as well to be rash and foolish for a while. If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would get written at all. It might be better to ask yourself 'Why?' afterward than before. Anyway, the force of somewhere in space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Wise #Book #Writing

Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Inspiring #Happiness #Fear

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Hands #Rainbow #Sorrow

Women forget all the things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Want #Remember #Forget

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 #Shows

Such as I am, I am a precious gift.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Giving

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Secret #Curiosity #Wish

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

Perhaps I am just a coward who loves to laugh at life better than I do cry with it. But when I do get to crying, boy, I can roll a mean tear.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Mean #Boys #Laughing

It was a weak spot in any nation to have a large body of disaffected people within its confusion.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Confusion #People #Glitter

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Distance #Men #Navy

Once you wake up thought in a man, you can never put it to sleep again.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Motivational #Sleep #Men

Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Home #Journey #Sea

I want a busy life, a just mind, and a timely death.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Mind #Want #Busy

It's no use of talking unless people understand what you say.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Talking #People #Use

No man may make another free.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Freedom #Men #May

Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Fit #Made #Said

It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Fighting #Games #Loser

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

I love myself when I am laughing. . . and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Mean #Laughing #I Love Myself

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 #Way

They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Eye #Dark #Staring

From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Song #Sleep #Breathing

Happiness is nothing but everyday living seen through a veil.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Inspiring #Everyday #Veils

Gods always behave like the people who make them.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#People #Religion #Behave

I did not just fall in love. I made a parachute jump.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Love #Fall #Made

But for the national welfare, it is urgent to realize that the minorities do think, and think about something other than the race problem.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Thinking #Race #Minorities

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

#Eye #Soul #Mind

The man who interprets Nature is always held in great honor.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Men #Honor

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

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

I was born in a Negro town.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Race #Towns #Birth

Silence is all the genius a fool has.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Silence #Genius #Fool

If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would get written at all. It might be better to ask yourself 'Why?”'afterwards than before There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Wise #Book #Agony

I am the kind of a woman that likes to move on mentally from point to point, and I like for my man to be there way ahead of me. Then if he is strong and honest, it goes on from there. Good looks are not essential, just extra added attraction.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Strong #Moving #Men

I note that the Africa loves to depict the grace of reptiles.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Grace #Reptiles #Notes

Everybody is two beings: one lives and flourishes in the daylight and stands guard. The other being walks and howls at night.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Night #Two #Daylight

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

Ethical and cultural desegregation. It is a contradiction in terms to scream race pride and equality while at the same time spurning Negro teachers and self-association.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Teacher #Pride #Self

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

The whole matter revolves around the self-respect of my people. How much satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody toassociate with me who does not wish me near them?
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Self #Order #People

Faith hasn't got no eyes, but she's long-legged.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Faith #Eye #Long

The very best place to be in all the world is St. Mary's parish, Jamaica. And the best spot in St. Mary's is Port Maria, though all of St. Mary's is fine. Old Maker put himself to a lot of trouble to make that part of the island of Jamaica, for everything there is perfect.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Jamaica #Islands #Perfect

So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Jamaica #Culture #Looks

I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Race #Feminine #Beads

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 #Sea

It must be recess in (heaven) if St. Peter is lettin his angels out.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Beauty #Angel #Heaven

Africa has her mouth on Moses.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Mouths #Moses

For four hundred years the blacks of Haiti had yearned for peace. for three hundred years the island was spoken of as a paradise of riches and pleasures, but that was in reference to the whites to whom the spirit of the land gave welcome. Haiti has meant split blood and tears for blacks.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Islands #Race #Blood

Gods always love the people who make 'em.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#People #Ems

want won't kill you half as quick as worry will.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Worry #Half #Want

Distance is the only cure for certain diseases.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Distance #Disease #Certain

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

When I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the crib of Negroism.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Ambition #Racism #World

If it was so honorable and glorious to be black, why was it the yellow-skinned people among us had so much prestige?
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Yellow #People #Black

The North has no interest in the particular Negro, but talks of justice for the whole. The South has not interest, and pretends none, in the mass of Negroes but is very much concerned about the individual.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

#Justice #African American #Race Relations