Some truly beautiful quotes from Zora Neale Hurston:
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men." (1)
"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...and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight....She was sisteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?...Looking, waiting, breathing short with impatience. Waiting for the world to be made." (11)
"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." (21)
"Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman." (25)
"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." (191)
"Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see." (193)
- If you find these depressing and beautiful, you are right, but they are still to me, very beautiful imagery! They are from Their Eyes Were Watching God, which I think truly has a lot of insights about being a woman, starting with our earliest dreams and illusions, things unfullfilled, and then resolving to see the beauty our own individual life has given us, seeing its green and gold, in its own individual expression, and then at the end of life, satisfied with the ebb and flow and seeing the beauty of the entire tapesty, and then being at peace~.
Spring Break Quarantine Style
3 years ago
2 comments:
I love how the imagery is exquisite in both sadness and passion!
I have often been acused of liking depressing books, but I just love literature that speaks to the real emotions of the human experience, and even if I have never felt those particular feelings, I am given the opporutnity to feel them by proxy. So to me, when I look for things to read, I generally look for things that are emotionally touching.
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