Hughes Langston Quotes & Sayings

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

My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now i wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house
My Ma died in a shack.
I wonder were i'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black? — Langston Hughes

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

Life is a egg you have to be patient and carefull with it or it will brake — Langston Hughes

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

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. — Langston Hughes

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

I wish the rent Was heaven sent. — Langston Hughes

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

Suicide Note:
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
-Langston Hughes — Kay Redfield Jamison

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

To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only Heaven. — Langston Hughes

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you. — 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

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

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. — 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

Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.- — Langston Hughes

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

I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

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. — Langston Hughes

Life dosent frighten me at all. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mother to Son

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 (112) — Sapphire.

Because shoes got by devilish ways will burn your feet. — 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

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

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

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! — 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

Question and Answer
Durban, Birmingham,
Cape Town, Alabama,
Johannesburg, Watts,
The earth around
Struggling, fighting,
Dying
for what?
A world to gain.
Groping, hoping,
Waiting
for what?
A world to gain.
Dreams kicked asunder,
Why not go under?
There's a world to gain.
But suppose I don't want it,
Why take it?
To remake it. — Langston Hughes

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

Quiet Girl
I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs. — 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

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

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

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly. — Langston Hughes

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

White folks sure is a case!" She laid three slices of bread on top of the stove. "So spoiled with colored folks waiting on 'em all their days! Don't know what they'll do in heaven, 'cause I'm gonna sit down up there myself. — Langston Hughes

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

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

As I Grew Older"

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun -
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky -
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun! — Langston Hughes

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

People up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten, buying furniture on the installment plan, filling the house with roomers to help pay the rent, hoping to get a new suit for Easter - and pawning that suit before the Fourth of July. — Langston Hughes

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

Of course Covarrubias wasn't a negro, but how he caught the darky spirit! — Langston Hughes

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, ... — Langston Hughes

Your explanation depresses me," I said.
"Your nonsense depresses me," said Simple. — Langston Hughes

Militant
Let all who will
Eat quietly the bread of shame.
I cannot,
Without complaining loud and long,
Tasting its bitterness in my throat
And feeling to my very soul
It's wrong.
For honest work
You proffer me poor pay,
For honest dreams
Your spit is in my face,
And so my fist is clenched
Today
To strike your face. — 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

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

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. — Langston Hughes

Slowly, after dozens of rejection slips and failures and false starts and postponed dreams
what Langston Hughes called dreams deferred
I stepped onto the hallowed ground of being a published novelist, and then, fifteen years later, I started to make real money. — Anne Lamott

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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? — Langston Hughes

I swear to the Lord,I still can't see,Why Democracy means,Everybody but me. — Langston Hughes

There is no color line in death. — 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

Our expanding ethnic diversity of this century, a time when we will all be minorities, offers us an invitation to create a larger memory of who we are as Americans and to re-affirm our founding principle of equality. Let's put aside fears of the disuniting of America and warnings of the clash of civilizations. As Langston Hughes sang, Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe. — Ronald Takaki

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

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

if you're going to use the word 'dream' in a poem, you had better be langston hughes. — Jewelle L. Gomez

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

Langston Hughes, who wrote, "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." As — C. Arthur Ellis Jr

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

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

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

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

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

Reach Up Your Hand ... and take a star. — Langston Hughes

Ku Klux"

They took me out
To some lonesome place.
They said, "Do you believe
In the great white race?"

I said, "Mister,
To tell you the truth,
I'd believe in anything
If you'd just turn me loose."

The white man said, "Boy,
Can it be
You're a-standin' there
A-sassin' me?"

They hit me in the head
And knocked me down.
And then they kicked me
On the ground.

A klansman said, "Nigger,
Look me in the face ---
And tell me you believe in
The great white race. — Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

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