Quotes from Zora Neale Hurston

No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

Mystery is the essence of divinity

My head was full of misty fumes of doubt.

He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.

In the cool afternoon the fiend from hell specifically sent to lovers arrived at Janie's ear. Doubt.

The sun had become a light yellow yolk and was walking with red legs across the sky.

I don't know any more about the future than you do. I hope that it will be full of work, because I have come to know by experience that work is the nearest thing to happiness that I can find. . . I want a busy life, a just mind and a timely death.

Pheoby, yuh got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. 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.

Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.

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.

My sense of humor will always stand in the way of my seeing myself, my family, my race or my nation as the whole intent of the universe.

Half Gods are worshipped with wine and Flowers. Real Gods require Blood.

But as de old folks always say, Ah'm born but Ah ain't dead. No tellin' whut Ah'm liable tuh do yet.

She wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done 'heard' bout you just what they hope done happened.

The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor.

Make the attempt if you want to, but you will find that trying to go through life without friendship, 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.

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.

The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.

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.

Night came walking through Egypt swishing her black dress.

truth is a letter from courage!

She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief.

Now, women forget all the 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.