Zora Neale Hurston

It is the curse of the black race to be forever looking backward, forever remembering.

I have been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots.

The greatest joy of my life has been to be a Negro woman.

Gods, like men, are made in the image of their creators.

If you have a problem, you don't go to the doctor, you go to the root doctor.

The white man is as much a victim of his own system as the black man.

I have been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peak of happiness and seen the world. I have been loved and hated, and I have done some of both. I have been a friend and an enemy. I have been a teacher and a student. I have been a lover and a hater. I have been a winner and a loser. I have been a victim and an aggressor. I have been a saint and a sinner. I have been a hero and a villain. I have been a god and a demon. I have been a king and a pauper. I have been a warrior and a peacemaker. I have been a giver and a taker. I have been a creator and a destroyer. I have been a builder and a wrecker. I have been a healer and a killer. I have been a savior and a destroyer. I have been a life-giver and a death-dealer. I have been a good person and a bad person. I have been a human being.

My soul is too deep for tears.

The highest heaven of Negro expression is to be found in the Negro church.

I am not a Negro. I am a human being.

They got up and went to the back of the car. It was an insult. But it was not a surprise. They had seen it before.

The greatest asset of a race is its culture.

The Negro is a poet in spite of himself.

Dat's what makes a man and a woman. You can't have one without the other.

Dat's de truth, for it's de only thing dat ain't subject to change.

It seems to me that if I am to sustain myself as a writer, I must be given the right to write as I see fit.

I am not tragically colored.

I would not exchange my life for any other. I have enjoyed every minute of it.

All my life, I have been a student of human beings.

Gods, like men, are born and die.