"Books -where if people suffered, they suffered..." - Quote by Langston Hughes

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

“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.”

“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.”

“O friendship, I too will press flowers between the pages of Shakespeare's sonnets!”

“When you educate a woman, you set her free. Had I not had books and education in Mississippi, I would have believed that's all there was.”

“I am not a fan of books.”

“The only link between Literature and the Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.”

“Nature and literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast”

“Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.”