Zora Neale Hurston: Doing

“Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Variant: There is two things everybody got to find out for theirselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.
Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

God

“If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.”

Zora Neale Hurston

Feeling

“There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them.”

Zora Neale Hurston

“Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road

People , Way , Thinking

“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 book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road

Life , Death , Hope , Business

“Pheoby, yuh got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God and they got tuh find out about livin fuh theyselves.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Context: "Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.""Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo' life and see whut you ever done. They know mo' 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. They done 'heard' 'bout you just what they hope done happened.""If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em than Ah do, they's a lost ball in de high grass."

Janie and Phoeby, Ch. 1, p. 16.

God

“No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

Zora Neale Hurston

How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)
Source: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings
Context: I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

World , Business

“Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Ch. 14 : Love, p. 203.

Love , Singing

“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

Zora Neale Hurston

How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)

School , Soul , Business , Strong

“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 still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Ch. 20

Love , Sea , Making love