619 Quotes by Zora Neale Hurston

Some people could look at a mud-puddle and see an ocean with ships. But Nanny belonged to that other kind that loved to deal in scraps.

One mornin’ soon, now, de angel wid de sword is gointuh stop by here.

She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them. She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.

The myths she describes so accurately are in fact “alternative modes for perceiving reality,” and never just condescending depictions of the quaint.

But stillness was the sleep of swords.

Packed tight like a case of celery, only much darker than that. They were all against her, she could see. So many were there against her that a light slap from each one of them would have beat her to death. She felt them pelting her with dirty thoughts.

Put me down easy, Janie, Ah’m a cracked plate.

The Estate of Zora Neale Hurston would like to thank those people who have worked so hard over the years in introducing new generations of readers to the work of Zora Neale Hurston. We are indebted to Robert Hemenway, Alice Walker, and all the Modern Language Association folks who helped usher in Zora’s rediscovery.

Many a man thinks he is making something when he’s only changing things around.