Langston Hughes Quotes - Page 6

Quotes about:

• 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

  Sweet, Everyday, Liberty

  Langston Hughes (2011). “The Panther and the Lash”, p.40, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

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

  Langston Hughes

  Hate, Broken, Alabama

  Langston Hughes, Dolan Hubbard (2003). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Works for children and young adults: poetry, fiction, and other writing”, p.77, University of Missouri Press

  16 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

  Heart, White, Yesterday

  7 Copy quote

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

  Langston Hughes

  Beauty, Nature, Fall

  94 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

  Dream, Lonely, Cheer

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  New York, Long, Georgia

  Langston Hughes, Donna Sullivan Harper (2002). “The Early Simple Stories”, p.41, University of Missouri Press

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Beauty, Falling In Love, Jealous

  Langston Hughes (2015). “The Best of Simple”, p.19, Hill and Wang

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Rivers

  Langston Hughes (2011). “Selected Poems of Langston Hughes”, p.121, Vintage

  6 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 aren?t it doesn?t matter.

  Langston Hughes

  Dark, Artist, White

  Langston Hughes (1995). “Langston Hughes and the Chicago Defender: Essays on Race, Politics, and Culture, 1942-62”, p.5, University of Illinois Press

  58 Copy quote

• I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.

  Langston Hughes

  Baby, Understood, Ifs

  Langston Hughes (2001). “The Poems, 1951-1967”, p.237, University of Missouri Press

  4 Copy quote

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

  Langston Hughes

  White, Feet, Miles

  Langston Hughes, Donna Sullivan Harper (2002). “The Early Simple Stories”, p.22, University of Missouri Press

  4 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

  Country, Book, Color

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Born, Stills, Died

  Langston Hughes (2002). “Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs”

  4 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

  Art, Race, America

  Langston Hughes (2002). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs”, p.32, University of Missouri Press

  5 Copy quote

• Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.

  Langston Hughes

  Moon, Tunes, Littles

  Langston Hughes (2001). “The Poems, 1951-1967”, p.72, University of Missouri Press

  4 Copy quote

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

  Langston Hughes

  Cake

  Langston Hughes (2001). “The Poems, 1951-1967”, p.180, University of Missouri Press

  6 Copy quote

• Wear it Like a banner For the proud? Not like a shroud.

  Langston Hughes

  Black, Proud, Banner

  Langston Hughes (2001). “The Poems, 1951-1967”, p.171, University of Missouri Press

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Death, Fall, Phones

  Langston Hughes (2015). “The Best of Simple”, p.15, Hill and Wang

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  God, Faith, Christian

  Langston Hughes (2001). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: The poems, 1921-1940”, p.156, University of Missouri Press

  6 Copy quote

• To some people Love is given, To others Only Heaven.

  Langston Hughes

  Love Is, People, Heaven

  Langston Hughes (2001). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: The poems, 1941-1950”, p.116, University of Missouri Press

  6 Copy quote

• Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!

  Langston Hughes

  Beautiful, White, Want

  Nation, 23 June 1926

  4 Copy quote

• I felt very bad in Washington. . . I didn't like my job, and I didn't know what was going to happen to me, and I was cold and half-hungry, so I wrote a great many poems.

  Langston Hughes

  Jobs, Half, Cold

  Langston Hughes (2015). “The Big Sea: An Autobiography”, p.205, Hill and Wang

  7 Copy quote

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

  Langston Hughes

  Daddy, Singing, Trying

  Langston Hughes, Donna Sullivan Harper (2002). “The Early Simple Stories”, p.75, University of Missouri Press

  6 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

  Believe, Writing, Creative

  Langston Hughes (2015). “I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey”, p.122, Hill and Wang

  7 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

  Home, Wheat Fields, Rivers

  6 Copy quote

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