Langston Hughes > Quotes

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

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

“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

“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

“Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.

I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.”
― 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

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

“Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows,
Help us to see
That without the dust the rainbow
Would not be.”
― 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, Selected Poems

“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, The Collected Poems

“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

“To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only Heaven.”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

“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.”
― Langston Hughes

“So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could have died for love--
But for livin' I was born.”
― 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 asked you, baby,
If you understood-
You told me that you didn't,
But you thought you would.”
― Langston Hughes

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

“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

“Hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken-winged bird
that can not fly

Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams go
life is a barren field
frozen with snow”
― 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, The Big Sea

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

“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

“Gather out of stardust, earth-dust,cloud-dust, storm-dust, and splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust not for sale.”
― Langston Hughes

“Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”
― 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

“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.”
― Langston Hughes

“Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the goodness
Be wasted forever.

Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the return
Be never.”
― Langston Hughes, Selected Poems

“How still,
How strangely still
The water is today,
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.

~ "Sea Calm”
― 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

“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, The Collected Poems

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

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

“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

“Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

“Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung.

To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only heaven.”
― Langston Hughes

“I wish the rent Was heaven sent.”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

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

“7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

“Cheap little rhymes
A cheap little tune
Are sometimes as dangerous
As a sliver of the moon.”
― Langston Hughes

“The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss”
― Langston Hughes

“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

“Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly,
Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field, Frozen with snow”
― Langston Hughes

“When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.”
― Langston Hughes

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

“The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

“I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
If I thought thoughts in bed,
Them thoughts would bust my head--
So I don't dare start thinking in the morning.”
― Langston Hughes

“Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.”
― Langston Hughes

“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