Langston Hughes Quotes

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

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?

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

I do not want no pretty woman. First thing you know, you fall in love with her-then you got to kill somebody about her. She'll make you so jealous, you'll bust!

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

If you want to honor me, give some young boy or girl who's coming along trying to create arts and write and compose and sing and act and paint and dance and make something out of the beauties of the Negro race-give that child some help.

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

Peace We passed their graves: The dead men there, Winners or losers, Did not care. In the dark They could not see Who had gained The victory.

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.

There is no color line in art.

My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night And I love the rain.

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

While over Alabama earth These words are gently spoken: Serve and hate will die unborn. Love and chains are broken.

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

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

Very early in life, it seemed to me that there was a relationship between the problems of the Negro people in America and the Jewish people in Russia, and that the Jewish people's problems were worse than ours.

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.

Through my grandmother's stories always life moved, moved heroically toward an end. Nobody ever cried in my grandmother's stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying. When my grandmother died, I didn't cry, either. Something about my grandmother's stories (without her ever having said so) taught me the uselessness of crying about anything."

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

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

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.

Money and art are far apart.

I must never write when I do not want to write.

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

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

But there are certain very practical things American Negro writers can do. And must do. There's a song that says, "the time ain't long." That song is right. Something has got to change in America-and change soon. We must help that change to come.

It has seemed to me that most people are generally good, in every race and in every country where I have been.

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

When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.

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.

LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY! True anyhow no matter how many Liars use those words.

The Jewish people and the Negro people both know the meaning of Nordic supremacy. We have both looked into the eyes of terror.

Sometimes I wish the public were equally aware of the men of our race in the cultural fields. You, for instance, have you ever bought a book by a Negro writer?

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!

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

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

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!

Writing is like travelling. It's wonderful to go somewhere, but you get tired of staying.

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

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 felt very bad in Washington. . . I didn't like my job, and I didn't know what was going to happen to me, and I was cold and half-hungry, so I wrote a great many poems.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

A dream deferred is a dream denied.

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely: You'll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a - You think It's a happy beat? Listen to it closely: Ain't you heard something underneath like a - What did I say? Sure, I'm happy! Take it away! Dream Boogie Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop! Y-e-a-h!

Don't come giving me, who's old enough to die and too near blind to create anything any more anyhow, a great big banquet that you eat up in honor of your own stomachs as much as in honor of me- who's toothless and can't eat.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Harriet Tubman lived to see the harvest.

I will not take "but" for an answer.