"It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such. I know that nothing is destructible; things merely change forms. When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world."
Hurston expresses her philosophy in this quotation. She refrains from adhering to any system of belief because she believes that this desire for order is antithetical to the relativity of existence. Rather than wish for a thing to remain the same and to be understandable, she allows the thing to change and shift and reincarnate without her.
"Mouths don't empty themselves unless ears are sympathetic and knowing."
Hurston works hard to ingratiate herself with local audiences. She needs to establish trust in order to inspire them to tell her their stories. In a way, Hurston must remove her personality from the equation in order to demonstrate her commitment as a listener.
"Many a man thinks he is making something when he's only changing things around."
In the stories she gathers, Hurston observes a lot of similarities. Over and over she hears the same story, altered somehow at various points. This in and of itself is a revelation to be observed. Hurston concludes that people only ever think they're original when really they're just assigning the same material to different blanks.
"Folklore is not as easy to collect as it sounds. The best source is where there are the least outside influences and these people, being usually underprivileged, are the shyest. They are most reluctant at times to reveal that which the soul lives by."
In her travels, Hurston finds that her mission becomes more social than sociological. She's after the truest, oldest folktales, so she must find the folks who hold onto tradition the tightest. This proves to be a challenge when she discovers that these uninfluenced people are reticent to confide not only in a stranger but in an outsider. These folktales amount to intimate confessions of belief systems, making them deeply personal and sacred to their tellers.
