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 the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. 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 worldโI am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
Zora Neale HurstonIf it was so honorable and glorious to be black, why was it the yellow-skinned people among us had so much prestige?
Zora Neale HurstonShe knew now that marriage did not make love. Janieโs first dream was dead, so she became a woman.
Zora Neale HurstonGrown 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 HurstonNow, suppose a Negro does something really magnificent, and I glory, not in the benefit to mankind, but in the fact that the doer was a Negro. Must I not also go hang my head in shame when a member of my race does something execrable? . . . The white race did not go into a laboratory and invent incandescent light. That was Edison. . . . If you are under the impression that every white man is an Edison, just look around a bit.
Zora Neale Hurston