# Quote — Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

> All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

- Author: [Zora Neale Hurston](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston.md)
- Book: [Their Eyes Were Watching God](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston/their-eyes-were-watching-god.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston#Their_Eyes_Were_Watching_God_(1937)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston/their-eyes-were-watching-god/all-gods-who

## More from this book

> 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.

p. 193 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston/their-eyes-were-watching-god/of-course-he-wasnt.md)

> When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that 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, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston/their-eyes-were-watching-god/when-god-had.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston/their-eyes-were-watching-god/the-wind-came.md)