Langston Hughes

"I swear to the Lord I still can’t see why democracy means everybody but me."

- Langston Hughes

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

- Langston Hughes

""The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life ... The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds—how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives—and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!""

- Langston Hughes

"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?"

- Langston Hughes

"Cheap little rhymes, a cheap little tune, are sometimes as dangerous as a sliver of the moon."

- Langston Hughes

"So since i’m still here livin’, i guess I will live on. I could’ve died for love–but for livin’ I was born."

- Langston Hughes

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

- Langston Hughes

"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

"Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk. The rain makes running pools in the gutter. The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night. And I love the rain."

- Langston Hughes

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."

- Langston Hughes

"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?"

- Langston Hughes

"Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow."

- Langston Hughes

"Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

- Langston Hughes

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

- Langston Hughes

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

- Langston Hughes

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is like a bird with broken wings that cannot fly."

- 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

"I learnt that the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it, even if in the beginning you think you can’t do it at all."

- 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

"I will not take ‘but’ for an answer."

- Langston Hughes

"Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables as we did in Kansas."

- Langston Hughes

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

- 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

"Jazz, to me, is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul - the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile."

- Langston Hughes

"From Carver's small laboratory at Tuskegee came formulas in agricultural chemistry that enriched the entire Southland, indeed the whole of America and the world."

- Langston Hughes

"Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid."

- 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