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.

My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss

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.

Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.

Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

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.

Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

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.

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.

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely: You'll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a - You think It's a happy beat? Listen to it closely: Ain't you heard something underneath like a - What did I say? Sure, I'm happy! Take it away! Dream Boogie Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop! Y-e-a-h!

I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.

Frosting Freedom Is just frosting On somebody else's Cake-- And so must be Till we Learn how to Bake.

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

Negro blood is sure powerful, because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop--you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.

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

I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everybody knows - except us - that all Negroes have rhythms, so they elected me class poet.