Zora Neale Hurston - Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)

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Grown people know that they do not always know the why of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof. Hence the irritation they show when children keep on demanding to know if a thing is so and how the grown folks got the proof of it. It is so troublesome because it is disturbing to the pigeonhole way of life.

Zora Neale Hurston
Everybody is two beings: one lives and flourishes in the daylight and stands guard. The other being walks and howls at night.

Zora Neale Hurston
'Hello, there! Call your dogs!' That is the regular way to call in the country because nearly everybody who has anything to watch has biting dogs.

Zora Neale Hurston
Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.

Zora Neale Hurston
I will fight for my country, but I will not lie for her.

Zora Neale Hurston
Perhaps it is just as well to be rash and foolish for a while. If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would get written at all. It might be better to ask yourself 'Why?' afterward than before. Anyway, the force of 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 bearing an untold story inside you.

Zora Neale Hurston
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.

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

Zora Neale Hurston
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
I don't know any more about the future than you do. I hope that it will be full of work, because I have come to know by experience that work is the nearest thing to happiness that I can find.... I want a busy life, a just mind and a timely death.

Zora Neale Hurston
I was a Southerner and had the map of Dixie on my tongue.

Zora Neale Hurston