50 Best Zora Neale Hurston Quotes That Hit Hard

Check out the best Zora Neale Hurston quotes that celebrate Black identity, womanhood, resilience, and the beauty of storytelling.

Zora Neale Hurston was a trailblazing African American author, anthropologist, folklorist, and filmmaker known for her bold voice and powerful writing during the Harlem Renaissance.

Born in 1891 in Alabama and raised in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-Black towns in the U.S., Hurston had a deep appreciation for her African American heritage and culture, which later became a powerful theme in her writings.

Her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is celebrated for its lyrical prose, strong female protagonist, and powerful exploration of race, gender, and freedom.

Some of the other popular books include “Barracoon,” “Mules and Men,” “Jonah’s Gourd Vine,” “Every Tongue Got to Confess,” and “Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.”

Hurston’s unique writing style blended real-life stories, local dialects, and folk traditions, making her voice both authentic and groundbreaking.

Her legacy continues to inspire generations as her words challenge societal norms, encourage self-expression, and remind us of the beauty found in life’s struggles and triumphs.

Here are the most famous Zora Neale Hurston quotes that inspire pride, courage, creativity, and individuality.

Top 10 Zora Neale Hurston Quotes

1. “Justice, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

2. “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

3. “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

4. “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

5. “Learning without wisdom is a load of books on a donkey’s back.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

6. “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

7. “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” — Zora Neale Hurston
8. “Once you wake up thought in a man, you can never put it to sleep again.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

9. “The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.” — Zora Neale Hurston

   

10. “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me.” — Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston Quotes on Life, Love, & Writing

1. “Truth is a letter from courage!” — Zora Neale Hurston
2. “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” — Zora Neale Hurston
3. “I did not just fall in love. I made a parachute jump.” ― Zora Neale Hurston
4. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” ― Zora Neale Hurston
5. “Gods always behave like the people who make them.” — Zora Neale Hurston
6. “Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.” — Zora Neale Hurston
7. “It was not death she feared. It was a misunderstanding.” ― Zora Neale Hurston
8. “Happiness is nothing but everyday living seen through a veil.” — Zora Neale Hurston
9. “A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.” — Zora Neale Hurston
10. “When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners.” — Zora Neale Hurston
11. “No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.” — Zora Neale Hurston
12. “I love myself when I am laughing… and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.” — Zora Neale Hurston
13. “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.” — Zora Neale Hurston
14. “Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes it’s shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” — Zora Neale Hurston
15. “Everybody has some special road of thought along which they travel when they are alone to themselves. And his road of thought is what makes every man what he is.” — Zora Neale Hurston

Famous Quotes By Zora Neale Hurston 

1. “You got to go there to know there.” — Zora Neale Hurston
2. “An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.” ― Zora Neale Hurston
3. “I want a busy life, a just mind, and a timely death.” — Zora Neale Hurston
4. “Those that don’t got it, can’t show it. Those that got it, can’t hide it.” — Zora Neale Hurston
5. “I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” — Zora Neale Hurston
6. “Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow.” — Zora Neale Hurston
7. “They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.” — Zora Neale Hurston
8. “Anybody depending on somebody else’s gods is depending on a fox not to eat chickens.” — Zora Neale Hurston
9. “There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them.” ― Zora Neale Hurston
10. “The Haitian people are gentle and lovable except for their enormous and unconscious cruelty.” — Zora Neale Hurston
11. “If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.” — Zora Neale Hurston
12. “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.” — Zora Neale Hurston
13. “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.” — Zora Neale Hurston
14. “There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart like leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet.” — Zora Neale Hurston
15. “It seems to me that trying 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.” — Zora Neale Hurston

Best Zora Neale Hurston Quotes From Her Books & Poems

1. “No man may make another free.” — Zora Neale Hurston
2. “Gods always love the people who make ’em.” — Zora Neale Hurston
3. “The man who interprets Nature is always held in great honor.” — Zora Neale Hurston
4. “Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person.” ― Zora Neale Hurston
5. “It is one of the blessings of this world that few people see visions and dream dreams.” — Zora Neale Hurston
6. “Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder.” — Zora Neale Hurston
7. “We must learn to be honest with ourselves, and know our shortcomings. We will acquire cohesion but we will pay dearly for being a slow pupil.” — Zara Neale Hurston
8. “There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every man’s spice-box seasons his own food.” — Zora Neale Hurston
9. “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
10. “Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the Universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.” — Zora Neale Hurston

Conclusion

Which of these Zora Neale Hurston quotations and sayings inspired you the most? If we missed one of your favorites, share it with us in the comments below!

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