I’m obsessed with the first whole chapter of Their Eyes Were Watching God, but this passage would have to be my favorite. It’s describing the “homecoming” of a mysterious woman named Janie, who everyone loves gossiping about (because they’re secretly jealous). 

The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed notions through their mouths. They sat in judgment.

Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without masters; walking altogether like harmony in a song.

I can’t get over how awesome this is. It’s so beautifully written, and mood is captured perfectly. Thank you, Zora Neale Hurston!