How it works
Logo@2xLogo mindzip color
Login

Langston Hughes

ft

Quotes
38

My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
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
Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.
Langston Hughes
When peoples care for you and cry for you they can straighten out your soul.
Langston Hughes
One of the great needs of Negro children is to have books about themselves and their lives that can help them be proud.
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
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
We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.
Langston Hughes
The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water.
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?... Or does it explode?
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
Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.
Langston Hughes
In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.
Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird, that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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
I will not take "but" for an answer.
Langston Hughes
I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.
Langston Hughes
When it is not on the side of civil rights, then the law is not right, it is white.
Langston Hughes
The Jewish people and the Negro people both know the meaning of Nordic supremacy. We have both looked into the eyes of terror.
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 are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.
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
Reach high, for the stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
Langston Hughes
Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.
Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die. Life is a broken-winged bird, that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
It's such a Bore Being always Poor.
Langston Hughes
My chief literary influences have been Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman. My favorite public figures include Jimmy Durante, Marlene Dietrich, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marian Anderson, and Henry Armstrong.
Langston Hughes
I will not take 'but' for an answer.
Langston Hughes
Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?
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
Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.
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 use cookies to understand our websites traffic and offer our website visitors personalized experience. To find out more, click ‘More Information’. In addition, please, read our Privacy policy.