“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
Work
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is a classic Harlem Renaissance novel by American writer Zora Neale Hurston. The novel follows Janie Crawford as she recounts the story of her life as she journeys from a naive teenager to a woman in control of her destiny.
Quotes
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Zora Neale Hurston
Canonical work source
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
“Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.”
“It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.”
“Love is like the sea. It's a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.”
“Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace....”
“Looka heah, Tea Cake, if you ever go off from me and have a good time lak dat and then come back heah tellin' me how nice Ah is, Ah specks tuh kill yuh dead. You heah me?”
“When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and...”
“She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.”
“It was the meanest moment of eternity.”
“Common danger made common friends.”
“People ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor.”
“All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most...”
“Then you must tell 'em dat love ain't somethin' lak uh grindstone dat's de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but s...”
“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher...”
“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. So much of life in its meshes! She called in he...”