Quotes by Zora Neale Hurston

About Zora Neale Hurston:

Zora Neale Hurston is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief.

Zora Neale Hurston

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

Zora Neale Hurston

It was the meanest moment of eternity.

Zora Neale Hurston

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

Zora Neale Hurston

Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and...

Zora Neale Hurston

When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but eac...

Zora Neale Hurston

If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all.

Zora Neale Hurston

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.

Zora Neale Hurston

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

Zora Neale Hurston

Love is like the sea. It's a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.

Zora Neale Hurston

For the first time she could see a man's head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted through the tunnel of his mouth.

Zora Neale Hurston

And I can't die easy thinking maybe the menfolks white or black is making a spit cup out of you. Have some sympathy for me. Put me down easy, Janie, I'm a cracked plate.

Zora Neale Hurston

Nanny's words made Janie's kiss across the gatepost seem like a manure pile after a rain

Zora Neale Hurston

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, roll...

Zora Neale Hurston

When Janie looked out of her door she saw the drifting mists gathered in the west -- that cloud field of the sky -- to arm themselves with thunders and march forth against the world. Louder and higher and lower and wider the sound and motion spread, ...

Zora Neale Hurston

From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ear...

Zora Neale Hurston

There was already something dead about him. He didn’t rear back in his knees any longer. He squatted over his ankles when he walked. That stillness at the back of his neck. His prosperous-looking belly…sagged like a load suspended from his loins.

Zora Neale Hurston

But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate.

Zora Neale Hurston

Please God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah'm is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin', Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time.

Zora Neale Hurston

Look lak we done run our conversation from grass roots tuh pine trees.

Zora Neale Hurston

So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.

Zora Neale Hurston

Author Bio

  • NameZora Neale Hurston
  • DescriptionAmerican author
  • BornJanuary 7, 1891
  • DiedJanuary 28, 1960
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAnthropologist; Historian; Author; Novelist
  • WorksTheir Eyes Were Watching God; Their Eyes Were Watching God
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; National Women's Hall Of Fame