Have Your Say (Part 1): Quotable Zora

Zora Neale Hurston appreciated plain-spoken wisdom. Sometimes the source of this wisdom was her personal observation and reasoning. Other times it was adapted from the mouths of the everyday people to whom she felt deeply connected.

Hurston was like a geologist and gem cutter rolled into one. Much of her creative energy was spent extracting the precious material of folk speech and philosophy and then carefully cutting away so that light and beauty shined through.

As true as this is, a careful reading will reveal that Hurston was concerned with far more than lyricism or dazzling her readers with pretty words. She wanted her work to say something and speak truth. “It’s no use talking,” she once said, “unless people understand what you say.”

In honor of Black History Month, we’ve gone hunting for more from Hurston. Here’s what we found:

• Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.
  
• The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.
  
• There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
  
• I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy…[a] whole slew of dime novels in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing.
  
• She didn’t read books, so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.
  
• Merely being a good man is not enough to hold a Negro preacher in an important charge. He must also be an artist. He must be both a poet and an actor of a very high order. Negro preachers…are…artists, the ones intelligible to the masses. A voice has told them to sing of the beginnings of things.
  
• Laugh if you will, but that man in the gutter is the god-maker, the creator of everything that lasts.
  
• Once you wake up thought in a man, you can never put it to sleep.
  
• Faith hasn’t got no eyes, but she’s long legged.
  
• I’ve been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountains, wrapped in rainbows with a harp and sword in my hands.
  

We want to hear from students: which quote is your favorite, and what do you read into it? When you post your reply be sure to include the whole Zora quote somewhere in the body. If you select one of the longer quotes then feel free to condense. We’re looking forward to hearing what you have to say.