Zora Neale Hurston Quotes

“Acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing. Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on.”

“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of N*grohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.

Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

“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 a sword in my hands.”

“I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me.”

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun'. We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. ”

“People can be slave ships in shoes.”