Quotes by Zora Neale Hurston

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard.  She had been spending every minute that she could steal from her chores under that tree for the last three days.  That was to say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened.  It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery.  From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom.  It stirred her tremendously.  How? Why?  It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again.  What?  How?  Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears.  The rose of the world was breathing out smell.  It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.  It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about her consciousness.

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her.  She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.  So this was a marriage!  She had been summoned to behold a revelation... 

Oh to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom!  With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."

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.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.

There is something about poverty that smells like death. Dead dreams dropping off the heart, live leaves in a dry season and rotting around the feet.

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