Home > Work > Their Eyes Were Watching God
101 " Moon's too pretty fuh anybody tuh be sleepin' it away. "
― Zora Neale Hurston , Their Eyes Were Watching God
102 " Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships…pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her…She had found a jewel inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around. But she had been set in the market-place to sell. "
103 " Look lak we done run our conversation from grass roots tuh pine trees. "
104 " ...for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.... "
105 " She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid. "
106 " So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. "
107 " Mrs. Turner was a milky sort of a woman that belonged to child-bed. Her shoulders rounded a little, and she must have been conscious of her pelvis because she kept it stuck out in front of her so she could always see it. Tea Cake made a lot of fun about Mrs. Turners shape behind her back. He claimed that she had been shaped up by a cow kicking her from behind. She was an ironing board with things throwed at it. Then that same cow took and stepped in her mouth when she was a baby and left it wide and flat with her chin and nose almost meeting. "
108 " Janie starched and ironed her face and came set in the funeral behind her veil. It was like a wall of stone and steel. The funeral was going on outside. All things concerning death and burial were said and done. Finish. End. Never-more. Darkness. Deep hole. Dissolution. Eternity. Weeping and wailing outside. Inside the expensive black folds were resurrection and life. "
109 " Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness. "
110 " He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God. "
111 " Maybe if she had known some other way to try, she might have made his face different. But what the other way could be, she had no idea. "
112 " The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. "
113 " Dis love! Dat’s just whut’s got us uh pullin’ and haulin’ and sweatin’ and doin’ from can’t see in de mornin’ till can’t see at night." Nanny to Janie "
114 " Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness…Like the pecking order in a chicken yard… Once having set up her idols and built altars to them it was inevitable that she would worship there. "
115 " Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood. "
116 " Mind-pictures brought feelings, and feelings dragged out dramas from the hollows of the heart. "
117 " Somebody got to think for women and chillun and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves… When Ah see one thing Ah understands ten. You see ten things and don’t understand one. "
118 " There was already something dead about him. He didn’t rear back in his knees any longer. He squatted over his ankles when he walked. That stillness at the back of his neck. His prosperous-looking belly…sagged like a load suspended from his loins. "
119 " Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means tuh live mine. "
120 " Well, she thought, that big old dawg with the hatred in his eyes had killed her after all. "