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

A Friday Bonus from Literary Ladies Guide

Hello! I’m going to be traveling this weekend, and not sure if I’ll feel settled enough to send out the usual Sunday edition, so here’s a reprise from just about a year ago, for all subscribers to enjoy. With much to say about life, love, and struggle, here’s a collection of memorable quotes by the incomparable 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 rediscovering and reviving 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 world.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”

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

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”

“She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”

“An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.”

“Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.”

“Love is like the sea. It's a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.”

Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'Jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.” (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942)

“There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season rotting around the feet; impulses smothered too long in the fetid air of underground caves. The soul lives in a sickly air. People can be slave-ships in shoes.”

“One of the most serious objections to me was that having nothing, I still did not know how to be humble. A child in my place ought to realize I was lucky to have a roof over my head and anything to eat at all.”

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.” 

“I want a busy life, a just mind, and a timely death.”

“... The force from somewhere in Space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like a bearing and untold story inside you.” 

“Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.” 

“The thing to do is grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.”

“If you haven't got it, you can’t show it. If you have got it, you can’t hide it.”

From other books and sources

"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." (Jonah's Gourd Vine, 1934)

“I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.” ("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? It’s beyond me." ("How it Feels to Be Colored Me," 1928)

"A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it." (Tell My Horse, 1938)

“Once you wake up thought in a man, you can never put it to sleep again.” (Moses, Man of the Mountain, 1939)

“I love myself when I am laughing. . . and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.” (I Love Myself When I am Laughing, a Zora Neale Hurston Reader, 1979)

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