Langston Hughes Quotations

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

I will not take "but" for an answer.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.

Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

I am amazed that my work of Dylan was chosen as his portrait,

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? . . . Or does it explode?

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?... Or does it explode?

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up - like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore - And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over - like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags - like a heavy lead

Uncle Willy's Chocolate Factory ... with lots of help from really good assistants.

Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on

I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed-- I, too, am America.

Reach Up Your Hand... and take a star.

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed - Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise: Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes.

Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams...

When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself

...the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it,....

I dream a world... where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!

There is no color line in death. I swear to the lord I still can't see Why Democracy means Everybody but me. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath - America will be! I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on.

Gather out of star-dust, Earth-dust, Cloud-dust, Storm-dust, And splinters of hail, One handful of dream-dust, Not for sale.

Americans of good-will, the nice decent church people, the well-meaning liberals, the good hearted souls who themselves wouldn't lynch anyone, must begin to realize that they have to be more than passively good-hearted, more than church goingly Christian, and much more than word-of-mouth in the liberalism.

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.

Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe.

Hang yourself, poet, in your own words. Otherwise, you are dead.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it ... what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.

Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.

A world I dream where black or white, whatever race you be, will share the bounties of the earth and every man is free

America never was America to me And yet I swear this oath - America will be!

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

They [the police] learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the station house.

Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.

I wish the rent Was heaven sent.

Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.

I loved my friend He went away from me There's nothing more to say The poem ends, Soft as it began- I loved my friend.

Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see That without the dust the rainbow Would not be.

I've been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'-- But I don't care! I'm still here!

I stay cool, and dig all jive, That's the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.

This morning I paid seventy cents for two little old dried-up slivers of bacon and one cockeyed egg. It took me till noon to get my appetite back.

To create a market for your writing you have to be consistent, professional, a continuing writer - not just a one-article or a one-story or a one-book man.

The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

Rest at pale evening... A tall slim tree... Night coming tenderly Black like me

7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.

If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.

Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes, but I laugh, and eat well, and grow strong.

Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better.

I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.

Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.

A dream deferred is a dream denied.

Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt Like snow.

It's such a Bore Being always Poor.

I don't dare start thinking in the morning. I don't dare start thinking in the morning. If I thought thoughts in bed, Them thoughts would bust my head-- So I don't dare start thinking in the morning.

Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear.

There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.

Money and art are far apart.

Life is a egg you have to be patient and carefull with it or it will brake

For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.

Life for me ain't been no crystal stair

We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Life is a system of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion.

I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.

Blues had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.

Frosting Freedom Is just frosting On somebody else's Cake-- And so must be Till we Learn how to Bake.

The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss

I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.

I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.

Wear it Like a banner For the proud? Not like a shroud.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.

For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.

Well, when Christ comes back this time, I hope He comes back mad His own self. I hope He drives the Jim Crowers out of their high places, every living last one of them from Washington to Texas.

Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.

Teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth because I do not want it to fall on me-nor Thee-nor anybody living. Amen!

Life dosent frighten me at all.