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Quote by Zora Neale Hurston

Work

Their Eyes Were Watching God

This novel follows the life of Janie Crawford, a woman who seeks independence and self-fulfillment in a society that limits her options. It delves into themes of identity, love, and the search for personal freedom. more

Author

Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and novelist who played a pivotal role in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Alabama and raised in Eatonville, Florida, she became the first African American student at Barnard College, Columbia University, studying under Franz Boas. Hurston is best known for her novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God," now considered a classic of American literature. She conducted extensive anthropological fieldwork in the American South and Caribbean, preserving African American folk traditions. Though largely forgotten after her death, her work was revived by Alice Walker in the 1970s, establishing her as a foundational figure in African American literature and anthropology. more

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“Then Brian came along. Oh Georgia, I fell for his warm eyes and soft smile that very first year he rented the cottage. It wasn't the same as I'd felt for Edward. That had been a once in a lifetime kind of love. But it was steady, warm, and as gentle as the spring thaw. . .It is love that brought you here. I've never seen another love like Scarlett and Jameson's. It was one of those faded lightnight strikes, miraculous to see up close, to feel the energy between the two when they were in the same room. That is the love that lives in your veins. I've never seen another love like I had for Edward, we were twin flames. But I've also never seen another love like I had for Brian - deep, and calm, and true. Or another love like William's for Hannah, achingly sweet. But I have seen the same love that I had for William the day that I stepped on that plane. It lives in you. You are the culmination of every lightning strike and twist of fate. Do not settle for the love that hones your edges and turns you bitter and cold, Georgia. Not when there are so many other kinds of love waiting for you. And don't wait like I did, wasting 17 years, because I'd left one bitter foot in my past. We're all entitled to our mistakes. When you recognize them for what they are, don't live there. Life is too short to miss the lightning strike, and too long to live it alone.”

“This usually occurs at the moment when my head hits the pillow at night; my eyes close and … I see imagery. I do not mean pictures; more usually they are patterns or textures, such as repeated shapes, or shadows of shapes, or an item from an image, such as grass from a landscape or wood grain, wavelets or raindrops … transformed in the most extraordinary ways at a great speed. Shapes are replicated, multiplied, reversed in negative, etc. Color is added, tinted, subtracted. Textures are the most fascinating; grass becomes fur becomes hair follicles becomes waving, dancing lines of light, and a hundred other variations and all the subtle gradients between them that my words are too coarse to describe.”

“There's a moment in the buddleia's lifecycle, purple flowers blooming, cabbage white butterflies flitting, when it's beautiful and triumphant, sprouting out of the broken wall without an ounce of earth to flourish in. That's what we humans have to do, I think whenever I see it, keep blooming despite the barren circumstances we sometimes find ourselves in. After a few weeks the buddleia becomes a weed again, , with grime-splattered leaves and crispy brown flowers that never fall off. You can only fight so hard, and for so long, before your environment engulfs you.”