He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.

— Zora Neale Hurston

Honey, DE white man is the ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tub find out. Maybe it's some place way off in the ocean where DE black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.

— Zora Neale Hurston

Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn't seem so destructive and moldy. She wouldn't be lonely anymore.

— Zora Neale Hurston

I found out to that you are bound to be jostled in "the crowded street of life." That in itself need not be dangerous unless you have the open razors of personal vanity in your pants pocket. The passers-by don't hurt you, but if you go around like that, they make you hurt yourself.

— Zora Neale Hurston

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

— Zora Neale Hurston

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.

— Zora Neale Hurston

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 sword in my hands.

— Zora Neale Hurston

I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. Furthermore, I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit, sorry. Furthermore, I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.

— Zora Neale Hurston

I love myself when I am laughing.

— Zora Neale Hurston

Insensate cruelty to those you can whip, and grovelling submission to those you can't. Once having set up her idols and built altars to the it was inevitable that she would worship there. It was inevitable that she would accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshipers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise, they would not be worshiped Though 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 worshiped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

— Zora Neale Hurston