Langston Hughes Quotes
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Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.
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Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.
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I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.
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We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.
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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.
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I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
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I will not take 'but' for an answer.
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I must never write when I do not want to write.
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Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain - All, all the stretch of these great green states - And make America again!
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You are white - yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That’s American. Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that’s true! As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me - although you’re older - and white - and somewhat more free.
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What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?
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It's such a Bore Being always Poor.
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Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
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Violent anger makes me physically ill.
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Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
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You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown. My father was a darker brown. My mother an olive-yellow.
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Very early in life, it seemed to me that there was a relationship between the problems of the Negro people in America and the Jewish people in Russia, and that the Jewish people's problems were worse than ours.
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My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.
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Good evening, daddy I know you’ve heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred
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My personal experience has been that in my 25 years of writing, I have not been asked to do more than four or five commercial one-shot scripts. These were performed on major national hook-ups but produced for me no immediate additional jobs or requests. One script for BBC was done around the world with an all-star cast.
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My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
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For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.
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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.