Langston Hughes Quotes

In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.

Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor -- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now -- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Looks like what drives me crazy Don't have no effect on you-- But I'm gonna keep on at it Till it drives you crazy, too.

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.

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

7 x 7 plus 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.

Violent anger makes me physically ill.

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

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?

Road's in front o' me, Nothin' to do but walk.

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

I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everybody knows - except us - that all Negroes have rhythms, so they elected me class poet.

Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on.

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

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

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.

I know how to handle women who act like ladies, but my landlady ain't no lady. Sometimes I even wish I was living with my wife again so I could have my own place and not have no landladies.

Even the 'Negro' shows like 'Amos and Andy' and 'Beulah' are written largely by white writers - the better to preserve the stereotypes, I imagine.

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.

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.

You and I By Henry Alford My hand is lonely for your clasping, dear; My ear is tired waiting for your call. I want your strength to help, your laugh to cheer; Heart, soul and senses need you, one and all. I droop without your full, frank sympathy; We ought to be together—you and I; We want each other so, to comprehend The dream, the hope, things planned, or seen, or wrought. Companion, comforter and guide and friend, As much as love asks love, does thought ask thought. Life is so short, so fast the lone hours fly, We ought to be together, you and I.

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.

These feet have walked ten thousand miles working for white folks and another ten thousand keeping up with colored.

Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Do you know that there are libraries in our country that will not stock a book by a Negro writer, not even as a gift? There are towns where Negro newspapers and magazines cannot be sold except surreptitiously. There are American magazines that have never published anything by Negroes. There are film studios that have never hired a Negro writer. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

Your explanation depresses me," I said. "Your nonsense depresses me," said Simple.

Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas

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

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

I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.

Lawrence has a wonderful hill in it, with a university on top and the first time I ran away from home, I ran up the hill and looked across the world: Kansas wheat fields and the Kaw River, and I wanted to go some place, too. I got a whipping for it.

The first of the month falls every month, too, North or South. And them white folks who sends bills never forgets to send them-the phone bill, the furniture bill, the water bill, the gas bill, insurance, house rent.

A world I dream where black or white,Whatever race you be,Will share the bounties of the EarthAnd every man is free.

So since I'm still here livin', I guess I will live on. I could've died for love-- But for livin' I was born.

Life is an egg you have to be patient and careful with it or it will break.

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

Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.

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

Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.

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

When I were a young man, I used to play baseball and steal bases just like Jackie Robinson. If the empire would rule me out, I would get mad and hit the empire.

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

Gather quicklyOut of darknessAll the songs you knowAnd throw them at the sunBefore they meltLike snow.

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

Life dosent frighten me at all.

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

Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.

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.

Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who can escape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art.

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

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

Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!

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.

As long as what is is-and Georgia is Georgia-I will take Harlem for mine. At least, if trouble comes, I will have my own window to shoot from.

To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering 'I want to be white,' hidden in the aspirations of his people, to 'Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!'

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

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.

Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why.

One of the great needs of Negro children is to have books about themselves and their lives that can help them be proud.

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