Zora Neale Hurston

"The only person who can define you is yourself, if you let them."

"I believe that within every person lies the potential for greatness."

"The act of listening is one of the highest forms of respect we can show another."

"I have learned that life is both more fragile and more resilient than we know."

"Every moment is an opportunity to choose kindness and compassion."

"I am the author of my own destiny, and I write with passion and purpose."

"The future is not something that happens to us, but something we create together."

"I have found that the most honest conversations happen when we are willing to be vulnerable."

"There is a magic in the world for those who have eyes to see it."

"I believe that art is the soul's way of expressing what the mind cannot articulate."

"The work of justice is never finished, and we must all play our part."

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

"Jump at de sun. You might not land on the sun, but you'll get off the ground."

"I have been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots."

"Grab the broom of anger and sweep out the corners where doubt sleeps."

"The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell."

"If you want that thing, you go get it. Period."

"Anybody depending on somebody else's politeness is barking up the wrong tree."

"Ships at a distance have every person's wish aboard."

"I love myself when I am laughing, and then again, when I am looking mean and impressive."

"The Negro race is too emotional and too artistic to take part in the scientific progress of the world."

"I am not tragically colored."

"All my skinfolk ain't kinfolk."

"Research is a formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose."

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission."

"Tain't no use in lying when it ain't been investigated."

"Life is for living; it ain't for sitting still."

"I got the key to the kingdom; I got the key to you."

"From the earliest rocking of my cradle, I had known about the caprices of the adult world."