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Zora Neale Hurston

Writer
I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
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 it's different with every shore.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
People ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
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 each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy. I had been through Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay and the whole slew of dime novelists in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing. Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on.
From Dust Tracks on a Road
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Perhaps it is natural for the god of the poor to be akin to the god of the dead, for there is something about poverty that smells of death
From Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
It was the meanest moment of eternity.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
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.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Gods always behave like the people who make them.
From Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
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 it's different with every shore.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
People ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
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 each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy. I had been through Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay and the whole slew of dime novelists in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing. Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on.
From Dust Tracks on a Road
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Perhaps it is natural for the god of the poor to be akin to the god of the dead, for there is something about poverty that smells of death
From Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
It was the meanest moment of eternity.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
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.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Gods always behave like the people who make them.
From Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
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 it's different with every shore.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
People ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
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 each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy. I had been through Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay and the whole slew of dime novelists in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing. Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on.
From Dust Tracks on a Road
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Perhaps it is natural for the god of the poor to be akin to the god of the dead, for there is something about poverty that smells of death
From Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
It was the meanest moment of eternity.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
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.
From Their Eyes Were Watching God
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
Gods always behave like the people who make them.
From Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion