Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston

Novelist, Anthropologist

Zora Neale Hurston was a prominent African American author and anthropologist known for her influential work, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God,' which explores themes of identity and empowerment.

Men People Race Eye Life Love
Born
January 7, 1891
Died
January 28, 1960
Quotes
215
Rank
#167

Quote collection

Zora Neale Hurston quotes (page 3 of 11)

215 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Zora Neale Hurston Novelist, Anthropologist
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"She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight."

Voice Roots Dust
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Zora Neale Hurston Novelist, Anthropologist
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"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."

Moving Men Comfort
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"It is a curious thing to be a woman in the Caribbean after you have been a woman in these United States."

United States Curious Gender
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"I want a busy life, a just mind, and a timely death."

Mind Want Busy
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"I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background........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." How It Feels to Be Colored Me"

Dark Race Rocks
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Zora Neale Hurston Novelist, Anthropologist
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"Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday."

Home Journey Ice Water
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Zora Neale Hurston Novelist, Anthropologist
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"She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop."

Book Heaven World
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"Anybody depending on somebody else's gods is depending on a fox not to eat chickens."

Foxes Chickens
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"All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. 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."

Fear Real Flower
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"It is easy to be hopeful in the day when you can see the things you wish on."

Hope Hopeful Wish
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"The sun, the hero of every day, the impersonal old man that beams as brightly on death as on birth, came up every morning."

Morning Hero Men
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"When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to."

Nice People Looks
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"When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners."

Love Comfort Dinner
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"Ethical and cultural desegregation. It is a contradiction in terms to scream race pride and equality while at the same time spurning Negro teachers and self-association."

Teacher Pride Race
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"There's two things everybody got to find out for themselves: they got to find out about love, and they got to find out about living. Now, love is like the sea. It's a moving thing. And it's different on every shore. And living... well... There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

Moving Love Is Years
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"I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me."

Feelings Mind Matter
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