Quotes from Zora Neale Hurston

Daisy is a walking drum tune. You can almost hear it by looking at the way she walks.

You'se different from me. Ah can't stand black niggers. Ah don't blame de white folks from hatin' 'em 'cause Ah can't stand 'em mahself. 'Nother thing, Ah hates tuh see folks lak me and you mixed up wid 'em. Us oughta class off.

The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again. So she put something in there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church. The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired.

People value monuments above men, and signs above works.

There was no doubt that the town respected him and even admired him in a way. But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate.

They fought and somehow he managed to bite Tea Cake high up on his cheek-bone once.

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

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.

A sound of strife in Jody's throat, but his eyes stared unwillingly into a corner of the room so Janie knew the futile fight was not with her. The icy sword of the square-toed one had cut off his breath and left his hands in a pose of agonizing protest. Janie gave them peace on his breast, then she studied his dead face for a long time.

She is full uh pepper, John laughed to himself, but ah laks dat. Anything 'thout no seasonin' in it ain't no good.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place

So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.

But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods--come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn't value.

Dey gointuh make 'miration 'cause mah love didn't work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. 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.

Now, dat's how everything wuz, Pheoby, jus' lak Ah told yuh. So Ah'm back home agin and Ah'm satisfied tuh be heah. Ah done been tuh de horizon and back and now Ah kin set heah in mah house and live by comparisons.

It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such. However, I would not, by word or deed, attempt to deprive another of the consolation it affords. It is simply not for me. Somebody else may have my rapturous glance at the archangels. The springing of the yellow line of morning out of the misty deep of dawn is glory enough for me.

What would slaves want to be free for anyway? They are being fed and taken care of. What more could they want?

Janie sat like a lump and waited. It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding. If they made a verdict that she didn't want Tea Cake and wanted him dead, then that was a real sin and a shame. It was worse than murder.

She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around.

She couldn't make him look just like any other man to her. He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom-- a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.

Jes' 'cause women folks ain't got no big muscled arm and fistes like jugs, folks claim they's weak vessels, but dass uh lie. Dat piece uh red flannel she got hung 'tween her jaws is equal tuh all the fistes God ever made and man ever seen.

You mean uh whole town uh nothin' but colored folks? Who bosses it, den? Dey bosses it deyself. You mean dey runnin' de town 'thout de white folks? Sho is. Eben got a mayor and corporation. Ah sho wants tuh see dat sight.

There is something about poverty that smells like death.

She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up.