They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor.
The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel.
He done taught me de maiden language all over.
For the folklore Hurston collected so meticulously as Franz Boas’s student at Barnard became metaphors,
Common danger made common friends. Nothing sought a conquest over the other.
But stillness was the sleep of swords.
Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid...
Ah'll clean 'em, you fry 'em and let's eat,' he said with the assurance of not being refused. They went out into the kitchen and fixed up the hot fish and corn muffins and ate. Then Tea Cake went to t...
Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high, but they wasn’t no pulpit for me. Freedom found me wid a baby daughter in mah arms, so Ah said Ah’d take a broom and a cook-pot...
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 un...
There is two things everybody got to find out for theirselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.
That though the heart is breaking, happiness can exist in a moment, also. And because the moment in which we live is all the time there really is, we can keep going.
She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.
She couldn’t make him look just like any other man to her. He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom – a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent...
Make the attempt if you want to, but you will find that trying to go through life without friendship, is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and the...
It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.
Hurston moves in and out of these distinct voices effortlessly, seamlessly, just as she does in Their Eyes to chart Janie’s coming to consciousness. It is this usage of a divided voice, a double voice...
Hurrying, dragging, falling, crying, calling out names hopefully and hopelessly.
Her resolutions against Jim Meserve were just like the lightning-bugs holding a convention. They met at night and made scorning speeches against the sun and swore to do away with it and light up the w...