Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, is a Southern love story about Janie Crawford.
Janie is a beautiful, independent, fair-skinned black woman living in the American South.
Despite her harrowing experiences, she refuses to be bitter, fearful, or sorrowful.
This book was out of print for almost thirty years, mainly because its initial audiences rejected a “strong black female protagonist.”
But since its reissue in 1978, it has become a worldwide classic in African-American literature.
Their Eyes Were Watching God Quotes With Page Numbers
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 1, Page 1
“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 same 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.
Now, women forget all those 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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 1, Page 1
“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 8
“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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 10
“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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 11
“Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 11
“She wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 11
“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. ”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 14
“Look lak she been livin’ through uh hundred years in January without one day of spring.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 17
And Ah can’t die easy thinkin’ maybe de menfolks white or black is makin’ a spit cup outa you: Have some sympathy fuh me. Put me down easy, Janie, Ah’m a cracked plate.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 2, Page 20
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 3, Page 21
“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 3, Page 24
“She often spoke to falling seeds and said, “Ah hope you fall on soft ground,” because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 3, Page 25
“..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 ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. .. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. ”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 3, Page 25
“She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 3, Page 25
“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 she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 3, Page 25
“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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 4, Page 32
“Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 4, Page 32
“He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 5, Page 39
“She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 6, Page 72
“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 had grabbed up to drape her dreams over.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 6, Page 72
“She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 6, Page 72
“She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 6, Page 72
“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, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them. She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 6, Page 72
“She didn’t read books so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 7, Page 76
“…she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see…”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 8, Page 87
“Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 9, Page 89
“When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 9, Page 90
“So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 10, Page 99
“He looked like the love thoughts of women.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 11, Page 106
“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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 11, Page 106
“In the cool afternoon the fiend from hell specifically sent to lovers arrived at Janie’s ear. Doubt.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 11, Page 108
“And God, please suh, don’t let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah’m is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin’, Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 13, Page 120
“She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 13, Page 120
“Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 13, Page 128
“You’se something tuh make uh man forgit to git old and forgit tuh die.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 15, Page 138
Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 16, Page 145
“It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel 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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 18, Pages 158, 160
“If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 18, Page 159
“They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 18, Page 160
“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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 18, Page 160
“No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 18, Page 184
“It was the meanest moment of eternity.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 19, Page 184
“It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 19, Page 188
“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, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 20, Page 191
“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, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 20, Page 191
“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, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 20, Page 192
“Pheoby, you 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, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 20, Page 192
“Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. 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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 20, Page 193
“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.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chapter 20, Page 193
What is a famous quote from the book Their Eyes Were Watching God?
“They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”
~Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Pages 158, 160
Their Eyes Were Watching God Summary
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a captivating novel about the life of Janie Mae Crawford, an African-American woman living in rural Florida.
The novel follows Janie’s journey from childhood to adulthood as she searches for true love and identity. She faces numerous challenges and struggles that test her strength, independence, and resilience.
Janie’s life is marked by the men she loves, each representing a different version of love and masculinity. Ultimately, Janie finds her inner strength and discovers true self-worth and empowerment.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a powerful story that encourages readers to recognize the unique beauty of every woman’s journey. It celebrates the power of resilience and illustrates that each woman can find her freedom and destiny.
The novel is a powerful testament to the strength and power of women’s stories. It speaks to readers of all backgrounds and encourages them to live authentically and find their voice.