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 Copy Share Image
Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat? — Langston Hughes Copy Share Image
Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep… — Langston Hughes Copy Share Image
I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was… — Langston Hughes Copy Share Image
I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe. — Langston Hughes Copy Share
“As I Grew Older" It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun— My dream. And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose until it touched the sky— The wall. Shadow. I am black. I lie down in… — Langston Hughes Copy Share
Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words… — Langston Hughes Copy Share Image
Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying. — Langston Hughes Copy Share Image
“In America the magazines in which one can frequently publish stories or poems about Negroes are very few, and most of these do not pay, since they are of a social service or proletarian nature. The big American bourgeois publications are very careful about what they publish by or about colored people. Exotic or humorous tales they will occasionally use.… — Langston Hughes Copy Share
Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves. — Langston Hughes Copy Share Image
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… — Langston Hughes Copy Share
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 Copy Share Image
“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… — Langston Hughes Copy Share Image
