M Langston Quotes & Sayings

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

I kept finding the same anguish, the same doubt; a self-contempt that neither irony nor intellect seemed able to deflect. Even DuBois's learning and Baldwin's love and Langston's humor eventually succumbed to its corrosive force, each man finally forced to doubt art's redemptive power, each man finally forced to withdraw, one to Africa, one to Europe, one deeper into the bowels of Harlem, but all of them in the same weary flight, all of them exhausted, bitter men, the devil at their heels. — Barack Obama

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

Hope I never love someone so much that they could hurt me the way Langston was hurt, so wounded all he could do was cry and mope around the house and ask me to make him peanut butter and banana sandwiches with the crusts cut off, then play Boggle with him, which of course I always did, because I usually do whatever Langston wants me to do. — Rachel Cohn

Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling. — 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'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

We could've been a still photo, the kind from a booth at the mall where two dollars went in and a strip of three shots came out. Our image wasn't the first shot, the one that was always frantic and unfocused. It wasn't the second shot either--laughing and silly. No, this was the final image--the serious shot--where the couple realized they wanted a good picture to remember the moment by and couldn't afford to screw the last one up. — Elizabeth Langston

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

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

Camarin and I are both baffled by the pleasure humans find with bowling. The noise is maddening, the equipment unsanitary, and the repetition boring. — Elizabeth Langston

I need to do something about college, but I'm not sure what."

"Where have you decided to apply?"

"Nowhere yet. Any time I think about the schools I've visited, I feel overwhelmed. The campuses are so big that I know I'll get lost. I dread making new friends. And the professors acted too busy to deal with someone like me. My parents will be wasting a huge amount of money."

"Your fears are no different than most high school seniors." He studied me thoughtfully. "Must you go to college?"

I opened my mouth to say Of course, I must - and then shut it again. The concept didn't bother me nearly as much as it should have. Skipping college would be crazy. Right? It was hard enough for a disabled person to find a job, but being disabled with no degree would make it hopeless. "I don't have a choice."

"Perhaps you have more choices than you realize. — Elizabeth Langston

Love is a lot of things. It's a hard place to fall and a soft place to land. It's give and take, push and pull. Love can bring out the absolute best or worst in us. But, when you find a love worth fightin' for, that's true love. And no matter the struggle or compromise, you can't walk away from that. Now ask yourself, is he worth fightin' for? — K. Langston

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

Since the day I met you, I've felt like I could fly. My heart is lighter and when I'm with you, there's no place else I'd rather be. Your beautiful smile and that feisty mouth have brought my dull world back to life. — K. Langston

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

Langston has been in love. Twice. His first big romance ended so badly that he had to leave — Rachel Cohn

The pigs were pushing their noses through the slats in the truck bed, which made Langston so unaccountably sad she thought she would have to sit down on the sidewalk. How is it possible, she thought, that a person can drive a thinking, feeling, animal to slaughter and not become less than an animal himself? And what were the pigs searching for, after all, but air and freedom? — Haven Kimmel

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

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

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

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

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

Memory loss is strange. It's like showing up for a movie after it's started. I'm sure I've missed something. I don't know if it's important or not. So I do the best I can to lose myself in the story and hope the gaps don't matter. Later, I can look it up, or someone will remind me, or maybe it's perfectly fine to not know. — Elizabeth Langston

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

I am that rose that grew from concrete, I am the ENTIRE mother to son Langston Hughes poem. And I'm still climbing ... — Jaha Knight

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

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

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. — Langston Hughes

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

Have you ever experienced human love?"

"Yes. Once."

Regret shadowed his face. "Then why would you be willing to repeat it?"

"What we learn is worth more than what we lose. — Elizabeth Langston

Fear is stupid. So are regrets. -Marilyn Monroe — K. Langston

I knew a sudden shyness. There was a look on his face, a stillness to his body that had never been there before. Though I couldn't give the emotion a name, I felt it, too. We had something special. Something hard to define. Something past friendship.

"I must go now," I said and rose up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, marveling at its velvet skin. "Thank you for the book."

He drew me into his embrace and sighed. "Thank you for the stars. — Elizabeth Langston

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emery was kneeling outside "gardening" when Ceony and Langston stepped through the illusion that masked the paper magician's house. He had positioned himself outside the curving garden of meticulously crafted paper flowers, and seemed to be replacing all the red, tulip-shaped flower heads with blue, lily-shaped ones. Fennel chewed on the discarded spells as Emery worked, crumpling them in his paper mouth and then spitting the balls into an overturned trash receptacle. — Charlie N. Holmberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the verdict?"

"There is always hope." His face softened. "However, it's unlikely your brain damage will improve."

He'd given me the answer I'd expected and dreaded.

I shut my eyes and sagged into the pillows. I'd braced myself for this result, but I'd wanted a miracle so badly that it was painful to hear the truth.

Sunlight pressed in on me, trying to cheer me up. I would resist a moment longer. This room, the quilt, my closed eyes - they formed a serene barrier against the world, although it wasn't clear to me if I wanted to keep the scary stuff out or the scared me in. — Elizabeth Langston