Zora Neale Hurston Quotes

No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.

It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.

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.

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

Tea Cake, the son of the Evening Sun, had to die for loving her.

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.

You heard me. You ain't blind.

...you got tuh go there tuh know there.

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

Ah done been in sorrow's kitchen and Ah done licked out all de pots. Ah done died in grief and been buried in de bitter waters, and Ah done rose agin from de dead lak Lazarus.

It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you 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.

Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it.

All my skinfolk ain't kinfolk

"Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now." "Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo' life and see whut you ever done. They know mo' 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. They done 'heard' 'bout you just what they hope done happened." "If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em than Ah do, they's a lost ball in de high grass."

I accept this idea of democracy. I am all for trying it out. It must be a good thing if everybody praises it like that. If our government has been willing to go to war and sacrifice billions of dollars and millions of men for the idea I think that I ought to give the thing a trial.
The only thing that keeps me from pitching head long into this thing is the presence of numerous Jim Crow laws on the statute books of the nation. I am crazy about the idea of Democracy. I want to see how it feels.