"Love is like the sea"–Zora's Quotes & Life Lessons

Your Literary Ladies lite Sunday edition

Welcome to the Sunday edition of Literary Ladies, in which I present something light and lively from the world of women’s lit — quotes, quizzes, pictorials, and such. With much to say about life, love, and struggle, today we'll explore some memorable quotes by Zora Neale Hurston.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891 – 1960), the American novelist, essayist, anthropologist, and folklorist, became well known in the Harlem Renaissance era of the 1920s.

In the course of her lifetime, Zora’s reputation declined; by the time she died in 1960, ill and impoverished, most of her considerable body of work was out of print.

Alice Walker was instrumental in the rediscovering and reviving of Zora’s literature. In 1973, she placed a marker at the spot where Zora was believed to be buried in an unmarked grave. The stone reads, “Zora Neale Hurston, A Genius of the South.”

Zora’s books are now read and studied far more even than they were during her lifetime, staples of American literature and women’s studies courses. 

“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,” she wrote in a 1943 letter to Countee Cullen. Indeed, the road she traveled was never smooth. She was a complex and challenging individual, but what a gift she left the reading world.