Quotes About Community

The town had a basketful of feelings good and bad about Joe's positions and possessions, but none had the temerity to challenge him. 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.

Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.

You cannot avoid hearing drums in Haiti.

But the whole town got vain over it

De first street lamp in uh colored town. Lift yo' eyes and gaze on it. And when Ah touch de match tuh dat lamp-wick let de light penetrate inside of yuh, and let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

We Negroes in Eatonville know a number of things that the hustling, bustling white man never dreams of. He is a materialist with little care for overtones.

These two "speech communities," as it were, are Hurston's great sources of inspiration not only in her novels but also in her autobiography.

Rumor, that wingless bird, had shadowed over the town.

One white reviewer in 1937 [said he] had difficulty believing that such a town as Eatonville, inhabited and governed entirely by negroes, could be real.

Us colored folks is too envious of one 'nother. Dat's how come us don't git no further than us do. Us talks about de white man keepin' us down! Shucks! He don't have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down.

If it wuzn't for so many black folks it wouldn't be no race problem. De white folks would take us in wid dem. De black ones is holdin' us back.

It was bad enough for white people, but when one of your own color could be so different: it put you in a wonder.

They came in wagons [...] People ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor.

brother pastorin' up round Ocala dat

All of the people took it up and sung it over and over until it was wrung dry, and no further innovations of tone and tempo were conceivable. Then they hushed and ate barbecue.

She must look on herself as the bell-cow, the other women were the gang.

Ah hears what they say 'cause they just will collect round mah porch 'cause it's on de big road. Mah husband git so sick of 'em sometime he

I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieve the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background. For instance at Barnard. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

While these characters split along the lines of gender in their thinking about masculinity, "Spunk" presents conflicting views held by the men within the Eatonville community.

All night now the jooks clanged and clamored. Pianos living three lifetimes in one. Blues made and used right on the spot. Dancing, fighting, singing, crying, laughing, winning and losing love every hour. Work all day for money, fight all night for love. The rich black earth clinging to bodies and biting the skin like ants.