Quotes from Zora Neale Hurston

The rose of the world was breathing out smell.

Anyhow he'll learn dat folks is human all ovah de world. Dats worth a lot to know, an' it's worth going a long way tuh fin out.

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

You tries tuh be so much-knowin'. You got tuh learn how tuh speak when you spokin to, come when youse called. Ah ain't got tuh do but two things--stay black and die, Sister Berry snapped.

Zora," George Thomas informed me, "you come to de right place if lies is what you want. Ah'm gointer lie up a nation." Charlie Jones said, "Yeah, man. Me and my sworn buddy Gene Brazzle is here. Big Moose done come down from de mountain." "Now, you gointer hear lies above suspicion," Gene added.

Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an altar to the unattainable- Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her from pinnacles and lose her in deserts. but she would not forsake his altars. Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise- a heaven of straight-haired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs.

The devouring force of the future leered at him at unexpected moments. Then too his daily self seemed to be wearing thin, and the past seeped thru and mastered him for increasingly longer periods.

Jim Allen laughed just as loud as anybody else and then he said: We better hurry on to work befo' de buckra [white people] get in behind us. Don't never worry about work, says Jim Presley. There's more work in de world than there is anything else. God made de world and de white folks made work.

Funny thing, he said sitting in Zeke's kitchen with his wife, things dat happened long time uhgo used to seem way off, but now it all seems lak it wuz yistiddy. You think it's dead but de past ain't stopped breathin' yet.

Big talk ain't changin' whut you doin'. You can't clean yo' self wid yo' tongue lak uh cat.

are years that ask questions and years that

You know they say a white man git in some kind of trouble, he'll fret and fret until he kill hisself. A n****r git into trouble, he'll fret for a while, then g'wan to sleep.

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.

Ah wouldn't give uh bitch uh bone if she treed uh terrapin.

Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted out of the tunnel of his mouth.

Some dead with fighting faces and eyes flung wide open in wonder. Death had found them watching, trying to see beyond seeing.

Ah ain't got tuh do but two things--stay black and die, Sister Berry snapped.

Ah'm uh bitch's baby round lady people.

God made it so you spent yo' ole age first wid somebody else, and saved up yo' young girl days to spend wid me.

In this chapter, what do you find out about Janie's parents and early childhood? CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.1

Ah jus lak uh chicken. Chicken drink water, but he don't pee-pee.

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

What yo' all reckon is the matter sho' 'nough? Must be something terrible when white folks get slow about putting us to work.

Ah had too many feelin's tuh tell which one tuh follow so Ah didn't cry and Ah didn't do nothin' else. But then she kept on astin me how come mah baby look white. She asted me dat maybe twenty-five or thirty times, lak she got tuh sayin' dat and couldn't help herself. So Ah told her, 'Ah don't know nothin' but what Ah'm told tuh do, 'cause Ah ain't nothin' but uh nigger and uh slave.