Langston Hughes

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

The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And the Negro had but few pegs to fall.
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 aren?t it doesn?t matter.
Langston Hughes

It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . 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

We younger Negro artists 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. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too... If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

No woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more that she can be witty by only the help of speech.
Langston Hughes

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

I will not take "but" for an answer.
Langston Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

Negro blood is sure powerful ? because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop ? you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.
Langston Hughes, Simple Takes a Wife

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

Good evening, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace.
Langston Hughes, Boogie: 1am

Melting pot Harlem ? Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall . . . where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.
Langston Hughes, Freedomways, Summer

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, Freedom

I am the American heartbreak? The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.
Langston Hughes, American Heartbreak

Quick, sunrise, come! Sunrise out of Africa, Quick, come!
Langston Hughes, Junior Addict

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, The Negro Speaks of Rivers

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it sags like a heavy load. Or does it just explode?
Langston Hughes, Dream Deferred