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 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 sanc...

Zora Neale Hurston

..she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. .. She knew the world was a st...

Zora Neale Hurston

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.

Zora Neale Hurston

A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.

Zora Neale Hurston

So the brother in black offers to these United States the source of courage that endures, and laughter.

Zora Neale Hurston

There is something about poverty that smells like death.

Zora Neale Hurston

It is one of the blessings of this world that few people see visions and dream dreams.

Zora Neale Hurston

Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person. That is natural.

Zora Neale Hurston

The man who interprets Nature is always held in great honor.

Zora Neale Hurston

When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners.

Zora Neale Hurston

It costs you something to do good!

Zora Neale Hurston

If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.

Zora Neale Hurston

Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow.

Zora Neale Hurston

It seems to me that trying to live without friends 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.

Zora Neale Hurston

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

Zora Neale Hurston

It's a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing.

Zora Neale Hurston

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

Zora Neale Hurston

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.

Zora Neale Hurston

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

Zora Neale Hurston

Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.

Zora Neale Hurston

I did not just fall in love. I made a parachute jump.

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