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born 1891

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist and writer. Her work recording southern language + culture in the African American community brought an important voice to the northern Harlem Renaissance. 

In spite of having produced multiple beautifully written + researched books, plays, essays and articles, Zora died penniless.

Her popularity didn't surge until 13 years after her death when she was "rediscovered" by writer Alice Walker. Alice helped raise Zora's life + writings to their rightful status as required reading. Today, Zora's masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God remains one of our best-loved books.

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Their Eyes Were Watching God shop
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life shop
Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States shop
Zora Neale Hurston Headstone
Zora and Me shop
Nora Zeale Hurston House

her quotes

all quotes by Zora Neale Hurston (21)

"The game of keeping what one has is never so exciting as the game of getting."

How It Feels To Be Colored Me | 1928

"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?"

How It Feels To Be Colored Me | 1928

"I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."

How It Feels To Be Colored Me | 1928

"I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes."

How It Feels To Be Colored Me | 1928

"I love myself when I am laughing. And then again when I am looking mean and impressive."

to Carl Van Vechten | december 1934

"It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk."

Their Eyes Were Watching God | 1937

"They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

Their Eyes Were Watching God | 1937

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

Their Eyes Were Watching God | 1937

"[She] felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place."

Their Eyes Were Watching God | 1937

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

Their Eyes Were Watching God | 1937

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

Their Eyes Were Watching God | 1937

"When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners."

Moses, Man of the Mountain | 1939

"Happiness is nothing but everyday living seen through a veil."

Moses, Man of the Mountain | 1939

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

Dust Tracks on a Road | 1942

"There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them."

Dust Tracks on a Road | 1942

"I did not just fall in love, I made a parachute jump."

Dust Tracks on a Road | 1942

"I do not pretend to read God's mind. If He has a plan for the universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it."

Dust Tracks on a Road | 1942

"Justice, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder."

Dust Tracks on a Road | 1942

"If you haven't got it, you can't show it. If you have got it, you can't hide it."

Dust Tracks on a Road | 1942

"To live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble and then not worth much after you get it."

Dust Tracks on a Road | january 1942

"You are alive, aren't you? Well, so long as you have no grave you are covered by the sky. No limit to your possibilities. The distance to heaven is the same everywhere."

Zora's journal | circa 1954

quoteurs we recommend...

Sarah Lewis
art historian
Alice Walker
author
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
poet

for further reading about Zora Neale Hurston:

  • Quotabelle profile
  • Zora Neale Hurston

curated with care by Pauline Weger & Alicia Williamson {august 2014}

Eatonville

Zora grew up in the first all-black incorporated township ~ Eatonville, Florida. Her childhood sheltered her from racial discrimination and gave her a first-hand view of African-American achievement, including that of her father ~ an Alabama share cropper who became a civic leader + preacher in Eatonville. Zora's unique upbringing shaped her ideas about race. The self-confident author wasn't necessarily opposed to "seperate but equal" forms of segregation. In this photo, she returns to her hometown as a trained anthropologist to record the rapidly disappearing folk culture of her youth.

US Library of Congress

Public domain

Zora, the student + educator

After a year at Howard University, Zora was offered a scholarship to Barnard where she was the only African-American Anthropology student. She did a B.A. + 2 years of grad work in New York before setting out into the field, starting with the Southern US and working her way through the Caribbean + Central America to record black folk culture. In 1934, she began a dramatic arts program {inspired by Negro folk traditions} at Florida's Bethune-Cookman College ~ an all-black university co-founded by civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune.

Carl Van Vechten | US Library of Congress

Public domain

Mule Bone Signed Playbill

In 1930, Zora teamed up with a fellow Harlem Renaissance great ~ poet Langston Hughes ~ to write a play inspired by her investigations of negro folk culture. Unfortunately, the play inspired behind-the-scenes drama, ending the co-authors' friendship and stalling its production. First staged in a limited 1957 run, Zora's {antagonistic} theatrical collaboration was eventually revived for this 1991 performance at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater.

New York Lincoln Center | Cinemage Books

© all rights reserved

Zora at the New York Times Book Fair

Zora scouts out the literary scene soon after her own first critically acclaimed novel ~ Their Eyes Were Watching God ~ was published by J.B. Lippincott in 1937. While her book received largely positive reviews in the white mainstream press, it was strongly critiqued by African American authors for being too sensual + sentimental instead of serious + political.

US Library of Congress

Public domain

I Love Myself...

Zora's work went largely unappreciated during her lifetime and after her death. That is, until it was championed by admirers Alice Walker and Mary Helen Washington in the 1970s. This is a reprint of their annotated 1979 anthology that helped establish Zora as a literary legend. The title is one of people's best-loved Zora quotes ~ "I Love Myself When I Am Laughing And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean & Impressive."

The Feminist Press

© all rights reserved