Langston Hughes
I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.Collection: Morning
For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.Collection: Beautiful
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.Collection: Science
I don't dare start thinking in the morning. I don't dare start thinking in the morning. If I thought thoughts in bed, Them thoughts would bust my head-- So I don't dare start thinking in the morning.Collection: Morning
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.Collection: Rain
How still, How strangely still The water is today, It is not good For water To be so still that way. ~ "Sea CalmCollection: Sea
Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.Collection: Fall
Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.Collection: Details
Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.Collection: Dream
Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.Collection: People
Everything there is but lovin' leaves a rust on your old soulCollection: Soul
Peace We passed their graves: The dead men there, Winners or losers, Did not care. In the dark They could not see Who had gained The victory.Collection: Dark
Anyday, one can walk down the street in a big city and see a thousand people. Any photographer can photograph these people - but very few photographers can make their prints not only reproductions of the people taken, but a comment upon them - or more, a comment upon their lives - or more still, a comment upon the social order that creates these lives.Collection: Taken
Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.Collection: Baby
My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.Collection: America
Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?Collection: Dream
Both of them were very good and kind - the one who went to church and the one who didn't. And no doubt from them I learned to like both Christians and sinners equally well.Collection: Christian
A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.Collection: Interesting
The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kissCollection: Kissing
I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied.Collection: Literature
But there are certain very practical things American Negro writers can do. And must do. There's a song that says, "the time ain't long." That song is right. Something has got to change in America-and change soon. We must help that change to come.Collection: Song
Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in KansasCollection: Beautiful
Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why.Collection: Sweet
Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.Collection: White
I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.Collection: Long
Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better.Collection: Beer
Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.Collection: Regret
I loved my friend He went away from me There's nothing more to say The poem ends, Soft as it began- I loved my friend.Collection: Ends
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night And I love the rain.Collection: Song
Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.Collection: Resurrection
I've been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'-- But I don't care! I'm still here!Collection: Wind
The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And the Negroes had but few pegs to fall.Collection: Fall
There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.Collection: Dream
Through my grandmother's stories always life moved, moved heroically toward an end. Nobody ever cried in my grandmother's stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying. When my grandmother died, I didn't cry, either. Something about my grandmother's stories (without her ever having said so) taught me the uselessness of crying about anything."Collection: Grandmother
Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.Collection: Love
7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.Collection: Amount
Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.Collection: Summer
Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.Collection: Firsts
Rest at pale evening... A tall slim tree... Night coming tenderly Black like meCollection: Night
Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.Collection: Country
One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help.Collection: Race
What happens to a dream deferred?Collection: Dream
Well, when Christ comes back this time, I hope He comes back mad His own self. I hope He drives the Jim Crowers out of their high places, every living last one of them from Washington to Texas.Collection: Jesus
A dog gets lonesome just like a human. He wants to associate with other dogs, but when they take him out, the poor dog is on a leash and cannot run around.Collection: Running
They [the police] learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the station house.Collection: House
We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.Collection: Strong