NovelGuide: Their Eyes Were Watching God: Top Ten Quotes

Top Ten Quotes

1) Janie, on her gossiping neighbors, stressing the importance of
storytelling and oral tradition: "Ah don't mean to bother wid tellin' 'em
nothin', Pheoby. 'Tain't worth de trouble. You can tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf" (6).

2) Janie, to the men of Eatonville: "Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me.how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think yo do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens" (70-71).

3) On Janie: "She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels" (72).

4) Janie, after Joe's death: "To my thinkin' mourning oughtn't tuh last no longer'n grief" (89).

5) Eatonville habitants, on Janie: "It was hard to love a woman that always made you feel so wishful" (111).

6) On Tea Cake: "Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place" (122).

7) On waiting for the mighty hurricane: "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" (151).

8) Tea Cake, on Janie: ".don't say you'se ole. You'se uh lil girl baby all de time. God made it so you spent yo' ole age first wid somebody else, and saved up yo' young girl days to spend wid me" (172).

9) Janie, on love: ".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" (182).

10) Janie: "It's uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know
there..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" (183).