Zora Neale Hurston Quotes

On living through a hard year without demanding it make sense yet:

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

On why the same person loves differently in different relationships:

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.

On chasing a dream that looks different up close:

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.

On deciding to finally speak up about mistreatment:

If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.

Noticing how your confidence in a decision changes between daylight and doubt:

It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on.

Deciding to stop outsourcing your biggest life questions to other people:

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.

Grieving a long-awaited dream that turned out to cost more than it gave:

She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.

Realizing a marriage was never going to deliver the love you expected from it:

She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman.

Deciding to organize your life around the dream you actually believe, not the one people accept:

The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

Weighing hard-won caution from an elder against your own hope for change:

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.

On noticing when a room changes how visible your identity feels:

I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.

On chasing a goal that keeps moving once you reach it:

No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.

On turning idle curiosity into an actual research career:

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

Taking stock of a life that has already survived its worst chapter:

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.