Langston Hughes Quotes & Sayings

It's such a Bore Being always Poor. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

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. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises - that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumbling say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
You are a man. Together we are building our land. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

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. — Langston Hughes

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

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

God in his infinite wisdom
Did not make me very wise-
So when my actions are stupid
They hardly take God by surprise. — 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. — Langston Hughes

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

Life dosent frighten me at all. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better. — Langston Hughes

Bow down and pray in fear and trembling, go way back in the dark afraid; or work harder and harder; or stumble and learn; or raise up your fist and strike-but once the idea comes into your head you'll never be the same again. Oh, test tube of life! Crucible of the South, find the right powder and you'll never be the same again-the cotton will blaze and the cabins will burn and the chains will be broken and men, all of a sudden, will shakes hands, black men and white men, like steel meeting steel! — Langston Hughes

Oppression
Now dreams
Are not available
To the dreamers,
Nor songs
To the singers.
In some lands
Dark night
And cold steel
Prevail
But the dream
Will come back,
And the song
Break
Its jail. — Langston Hughes

Love is a naked shadow, On a gnarled and naked tree. — Langston Hughes

As much as they loved Negroes, Neroes didn't seem to love Michael and Anne. — Langston Hughes

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

I am so tired of waiting.
Aren't you,
for the world to become good
and beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
and cut the world in two
and see what worms are eating
at the rind. — Langston Hughes

Let the rain sing you a lullaby. — Langston Hughes

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

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

Hard as I try, daddy-o, I really do not like concert singers. They are always singing in some foreign language. — Langston Hughes

American Heartbreak
I am the American heartbreak
The rock on which Freedom
Stumped its toe
The great mistake
That Jamestown made
Long ago. — Langston Hughes

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

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. — Langston Hughes

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

This, the dream and the dreamer, wandering in the desert from Hopkinsville to Vienna in love with a streetwalker named Music. ... — Langston Hughes

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

I will take your heart.
I will take your soul out of your body
As though I were God.
I will not be satisfied
With the little words you say to me.
I will not be satisfied
With the touch of your hand
Nor the sweet of your lips alone.
I will take your heart for mine.
I will take your soul.
I will be God when it comes to you. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown. — Langston Hughes

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

Color
Wear it
Like a banner
For the proud
Not like a shroud.
Wear it
Like a song
Soaring high
Not moan or cry. — Langston Hughes

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

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

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams ... — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

I must never write when I do not want to write. — Langston Hughes

The Dream Keeper
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world. — Langston Hughes

The sea is a desert of waves,
A wilderness of water. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

Good people are not that good. To tell the truth, if I were white, no matter how much I loved Negroes, I doubt that I would submit myself to Jim Crow living conditions just to prove my love." "Neither would I," said Simple. "Then you would not be very good, either." "No," said Simple, "but I would be white. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

Down Where I Am
Too many years
Beatin' at the door
I done beat my
Both fists sore.
Too many years
Tryin' to get up there
Done broke my ankles down,
Got nowhere.
Too many years
Climbin' that hill,
'Bout out of breath.
I got my fill.
I'm gonna plant my feet
On solid ground.
If you want to see me,
Come down. — Langston Hughes

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

Joe has sense enough to know
He is a god.
So many gods don't know. — Langston Hughes

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

For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

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

One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help. — Langston Hughes

Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding. — Langston Hughes

The prerequisite for writing is having something to say. — Langston Hughes

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

A dog gets lonesome just like a human. He wants to associate with other dogs, but when they take him out, the poor dog is on a leash and cannot run around. — Langston Hughes

It were depression, too. They cut my wages down once at the foundry. They cut my wages down again. Then they cut my wages out, also the job. — Langston Hughes

Life Is Fine"

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.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

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

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

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine! — Langston Hughes

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

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. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

Harriet Tubman lived to see the harvest. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

Tell all my mourners
To mourn in red-
Cause there ain't no sense
In my bein' dead. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

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

Even to an outsider like myself, not only in the theatre was such disunity evident, but in much else in government Spain. Alvarez del Vayo, Socialist Minister of Foreign Affairs, once asked, Why is it Spain's people are so great, but her leaders so small? — Langston Hughes

The speaker catches fire
looking at their faces.
His words
jump down to stand
in listener's places. — Langston Hughes

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

Justice
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. — Langston Hughes

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

You see, books had been happening to me. — Langston Hughes

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

Believing everything she read
In the daily news,
(No in-between to choose)
She thought that only
One side won,
Not that BOTH
Might lose. — Langston Hughes

I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind-
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that's in my mind. — Langston Hughes