Langston Hughes

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?

— Langston Hughes

Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents…

— Langston Hughes

I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English…

— Langston Hughes

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

— Langston Hughes

“As I Grew Older" It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In…

— Langston Hughes

Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There…

— 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

“In America the magazines in which one can frequently publish stories or poems about Negroes are very few, and most of these…

— Langston Hughes

Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.

— Langston Hughes

Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Do you know that there are libraries in…

— Langston Hughes

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color…

— Langston Hughes

“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that can not fly. Hold fast to dreams for…

— Langston Hughes

Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see That without the dust the rainbow Would not be.

— Langston Hughes

I loved my friend He went away from me There's nothing more to say The poem ends, Soft as it began- I…

— Langston Hughes

The Jewish people and the Negro people both know the meaning of Nordic supremacy. We have both looked into the eyes of…

— Langston Hughes

Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt Like snow.

— Langston Hughes

I do not want no pretty woman. First thing you know, you fall in love with her-then you got to kill somebody…

— Langston Hughes

“You see, books had been happening to me.”

— Langston Hughes

Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their 'white' culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro…

— Langston Hughes

I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.

— Langston Hughes

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it…

— Langston Hughes

I will not take "but" for an answer.

— Langston Hughes

Teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth because I…

— Langston Hughes

Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe.

— Langston Hughes

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

— Langston Hughes