Langston Hughes Quotes

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 (Quoted in Not So Simple: The Simple Stories by Langston Hughes, 1996)

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 (Quoted in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, 2003)

Love is a naked shadow, on a gnarled and naked tree.

Langston Hughes (Fine Clothes to the Jew, 1927)

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)

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 (Quoted in Autobiography: I wonder as I wander, 2003)

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Langston Hughes (Dreams)

It's such a bore, being always Poor.

Langston Hughes (Quoted in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes - Volume 2, 2001)

The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

Langston Hughes (The Weary Blues, 1926)

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

Langston Hughes (A Note on Humor, 1966)

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

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

Langston Hughes (Last Whipping)

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

Langston Hughes (Quoted in Essays on Art, Race, Politics, and World Affairs, 2002)

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

Langston Hughes (The Big Sea)

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 Weary Blues, 1926)

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

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes Biography

Born: February 1, 1902
Died: May 22, 1967

Langston Hughes was an American poet, writer and novelist. He is best known for his poetry and his work during the cultural movement, the Harlem Renaissance in the early 20th century.

Notable Works

The Weary Blues (1926)
Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
Not Without Laughter (1930)
Mule Bone (1931)
Dear Lovely Death (1931)
Let America Be America Again (1938)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

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