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193b5b5
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She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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6eff85b
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From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom...It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.
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nature
trees
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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a6a7c0d
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The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet... From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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b64b40d
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Look lak she been livin' through uh hundred years in January without one day of spring.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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e483c9c
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And I can't die easy thinking maybe the menfolks white or black is making a spit cup out of you. Have some sympathy for me. Put me down easy, Janie, I'm a cracked plate.
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men
janie
mothers
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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dc35d90
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The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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da8e817
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My head was full of misty fumes of doubt.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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7621b6a
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He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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dcf85c6
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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.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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a12186b
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Mystery is the essence of divinity
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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679470d
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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.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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448d682
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Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.
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women
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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58842b2
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In the cool afternoon the fiend from hell specifically sent to lovers arrived at Janie's ear. Doubt.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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0189eb1
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anytime you catch folks lying, they scared of something!
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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ad900af
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People can be slave ships in shoes.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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ac123b9
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Perhaps it is just as well to be rash and foolish for a while. If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would get written at all. It might be better to ask yourself 'Why?' afterward than before. Anyway, the force of somewhere in space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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1a82ddf
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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.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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7a7970a
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No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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1e0798d
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She couldn't make him look just like any other man to her. 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 above him. He was a glance from God.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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d173473
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The sun had become a light yellow yolk and was walking with red legs across the sky.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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3aada07
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I will fight for my country, but I will not lie for her.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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1a75ea0
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My sense of humor will always stand in the way of my seeing myself, my family, my race or my nation as the whole intent of the universe.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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35334c3
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The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles a hour wind had loosed his chains. He seized hold of his dikes and ran forward until he met the quarters; uprooted them like grass and rushed on after his supposed-to-be conquerors, rolling the dikes, rolling the houses, rolling the people in the houses along with other timbers. The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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f039f46
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They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down.
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reciprocal
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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7da55c7
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Night came walking through Egypt swishing her black dress.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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7dbd614
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Make the attempt if you want to, but you will find that trying to go through life without friendship, is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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712c9d8
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So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down on the world she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, 'Ah hope you fall on soft ground,' because..
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literature
their-eyes-were-watching-god
zora-neale-hurston
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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6e37a40
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She wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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3cfcfc8
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She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man,..
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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5688f44
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Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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f8cf04d
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But as de old folk always say, Ah'm born but Ah ain't dead. No tellin' whut Ah'm liable tuh do yet.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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2bb4e71
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So Janie began to think of Death. Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof. What need has Death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him? He stands in his high house that overlooks the world. Stands watchful and motionless all day with his sword drawn back, waiting for the messenger to bid him c..
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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a7390ab
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truth is a letter from courage!
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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0dd1aae
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Half Gods are worshipped with wine and Flowers. Real Gods require Blood.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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ac767ac
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She knew things that nobody had ever told her... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pastor of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one every sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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6c26ad0
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When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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769ebb5
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The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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8a5a165
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Now, women forget all the things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
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hurston
men-and-women
memory
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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21ef5bc
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She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief.
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poignant
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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f5bf2b4
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So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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a6f1c4c
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It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile.
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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344d5c8
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It seems to me to be true that heavens are placed in the sky because it is the unreachable. The unreachable and therefore the unknowable always seems divine--hence, religion. People need religion because the great masses fear life and its consequences. Its responsibilities weigh heavy. Feeling a weakness in the face of great forces, men seek an alliance with omnipotence to bolster up their feeling of weakness, even though the omnipotence th..
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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eddebe0
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Tain't no use in you cryin' . . . But folks is meant to cry 'bout somethin' or other. Better leave things de way dey is. Youse young yet. No tellin' whut mout happen befo' you die.
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life
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Zora Neale Hurston |
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d320e8f
|
you got tuh go there tuh know there.
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knowledge
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Zora Neale Hurston |