Quotes by Langston Hughes - Page 4

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!
Langston Hughes / Poet
Looks
Snow
Wind
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Everyday
Liberty
Sweet
Copy Quote
I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Believe
Creative
Writing
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Glad
Individual
Matter
Shame
Ugly
White
Now
Younger
Artists
Create
Express
Intend
Pleased
Selves
Copy Quote
It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . 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!"
Langston Hughes / Poet
Art
Beautiful
White
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Art
Girl
Children
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
America
Long
Song
Copy Quote
I live in Harlem, New York City. I am unmarried. I like 'Tristan,' goat's milk, short novels, lyric poems, heat, simple folk, boats and bullfights; I dislike 'Aida,' parsnips, long novels, narrative poems, cold, pretentious folk, buses and bridges.
Langston Hughes / Poet
New York
Bridges
Cold
Dislike
Harlem
Heat
Milk
Narrative
New York City
Pretentious
Simple
Unmarried
Goat
Boats
Buses
City
Short
Folk
Lyric
Novels
Poems
York
Copy Quote
My chief literary influences have been Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman. My favorite public figures include Jimmy Durante, Marlene Dietrich, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marian Anderson, and Henry Armstrong.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Armstrong
Figures
Franklin
Jimmy
Mary
Public Figures
Walt
Anderson
Favorite
Chief
Literary
Henry
Include
Influences
Laurence
Marlene
Mrs
Paul
Roosevelt
Whitman
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Home
Rivers
Wheat Fields
Copy Quote
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?
Langston Hughes / Poet
Dream
Running
Sweet
Copy Quote
Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their 'white' culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Artist
Conscious
Creative
Creative Work
Lifetime
Manners
Race
Sufficient
Among
Be Different
Classes
Work Better Enough
Furnish
Outside
Copy Quote
Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing You do not know I die?
Langston Hughes / Poet
Laughter
Pain
Song
Copy Quote
This is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America - this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Art
America
Race
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Teacher
Class
English Teacher
Importance
Poet
Rhythm
Stereotype
Victim
Poetry Always Me
English
Elected
Except
Stressing
Copy Quote
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk. The rain makes running pools in the gutter. The rain plays a little sellp-song on our roof at night- And I love the rain.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Running
Song
Spring
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Color
Mean
Rocks
Copy Quote
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!
Langston Hughes / Poet
Land
Lying
Rivers
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Heart
Rain
Summer
Copy Quote
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!'
Langston Hughes / Poet
Artist
Force
Outsiders
Whispering
Accepts
Younger
Aspirations
Old
Duties
Hidden
Copy Quote
Jazz, to me, is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul - the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Smile
America
Eternal
Inherent
Jazz
Joy
Laughter
Pain
Revolt
Soul
Subway
Weariness
White
Life Work Pain
Against
Beating
Life Smile Work
Expressions
Trains
Swallowed
White World
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Christian
Nice
People
Copy Quote
My personal experience has been that in my 25 years of writing, I have not been asked to do more than four or five commercial one-shot scripts. These were performed on major national hook-ups but produced for me no immediate additional jobs or requests. One script for BBC was done around the world with an all-star cast.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Jobs
Scripts
Experience World Me
Additional
All-Star
Asked
Bbc
Cast
Commercial
Immediate
Major
National
Performed
Personal Experience
Produced
Requests
Script
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Beautiful
Brother
Strong
Copy Quote
In the spring rain, the pond and the river become one. Into every life some rain must fall. Usually when your car windows are down. It raineth on the Just and the Unjust Alike, But the Unjust stealeth the Just's umbrella Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Fall
Rain
Spring
Copy Quote
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!
Langston Hughes / Poet
Dream
Morning
Thinking
Copy Quote
Anyday, one can walk down the street in a big city and see a thousand people. Any photographer can photograph these people - but very few photographers can make their prints not only reproductions of the people taken, but a comment upon them - or more, a comment upon their lives - or more still, a comment upon the social order that creates these lives.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Cities
Order
Taken
Copy Quote
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."
Langston Hughes / Poet
Grandmother
Stories
Taught
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Book
Color
Country
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Beautiful
Dark
Strong
Copy Quote
I’s been livin’ a long time in yesterday, Sandy chile, an’ I knows there ain’t no room in de world fo’ nothin’ mo’n love. I know, chile! Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ‘nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body – great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil – ‘cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stay an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Heart
White
Yesterday
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Dark
Fall
Son
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
New Orleans
Sleep
Sunset
Copy Quote
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.
Langston Hughes / Poet
Dream
Cheer
Lonely
Copy Quote

Related Poet Authors

William Blake
Poet
Monday, Nov 28, 1757
Sunday, Aug 12, 1827
Walt Whitman
Poet
Monday, May 31, 1819
Saturday, Mar 26, 1892
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poet
Wednesday, Oct 21, 1772
Friday, Jul 25, 1834
Robert Frost
Poet
Thursday, Mar 26, 1874
Tuesday, Jan 29, 1963
Lucy Larcom
Poet
Friday, Mar 05, 1824
Monday, Apr 17, 1893
Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Poet
Zoe Whittall
Poet
Monday, Feb 16, 1976
Zbigniew Herbert
Poet
Wednesday, Oct 29, 1924
Tuesday, Jul 28, 1998
Yvor Winters
Poet
Wednesday, Oct 17, 1900
Thursday, Jan 25, 1968
Yvonne Zipter
Poet
Yusef Komunyakaa
Poet
Tuesday, Apr 29, 1947
Yunus Emre
Poet
Yosa Buson
Poet

Thursday, Dec 25, 1783
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Poet
Monday, Jul 18, 1932
Saturday, Apr 01, 2017
Yevgeny Baratynsky
Poet
Sunday, Mar 02, 1800
Thursday, Jul 11, 1844

View All Poet Quotes

Top Authors

Kim Kardashian
Television Personality
Tuesday, Oct 21, 1980
Tyler, The Creator
Rapper
Wednesday, Mar 06, 1991
Epictetus
Philosopher
Nelson Mandela
Former President Of South Africa
Thursday, Jul 18, 1918
Thursday, Dec 05, 2013
Niccolo Machiavelli
Historian
Monday, May 03, 1469
Tuesday, Jun 21, 1527
Robert Frost
Poet
Thursday, Mar 26, 1874
Tuesday, Jan 29, 1963
Socrates
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Edgar Allan Poe
Author
Thursday, Jan 19, 1809
Sunday, Oct 07, 1849
Chanakya
Teacher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Walt Disney
Animator
Thursday, Dec 05, 1901
Thursday, Dec 15, 1966
Mother Teresa
Saint
Friday, Aug 26, 1910
Friday, Sep 05, 1997
Oprah Winfrey
Media Proprietor
Friday, Jan 29, 1954
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Activist
Tuesday, Jan 15, 1929
Thursday, Apr 04, 1968
Zig Ziglar
Author
Saturday, Nov 06, 1926
Wednesday, Nov 28, 2012
Leonardo Da Vinci
Painter
Thursday, Apr 15, 1452
Friday, May 02, 1519

View All Authors

Langston Hughes Quotes - Page 4

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Poet Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

Picture Quotes Maker

Related Poet Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page