The voices / 48 fragments

Langston Hughes

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Archive entries

01Undated

When peoples cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.

Langston Hughes / quote

02Undated

People up today and down tomorrow, working this week and fired the next, beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly beaten, buying furniture on the installment plan, filling the house with roomers to help pay the rent, hoping to get a new suit for Easter—and pawning that suit before the Fourth of July.

Langston Hughes / quote

03Undated

Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas

Langston Hughes / quote

04Undated

My old man's a white old manAnd my old mother's black.If ever I cursed my white old manI take my curses back.If ever I cursed my black old motherAnd wished she were in hell,I'm sorry for that evil wishAnd now i wish her wellMy old man died in a fine big houseMy Ma died in a shack.I wonder were i'm going to die,Being neither white nor black?

Langston Hughes / quote

05Undated

I was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother. 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 / quote

06Undated

I, too, sing America.I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong.Tomorrow,I'll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,"Eat in the kitchen,"Then.Besides,They'll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed--I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes / quote

07Undated

I dream a world where man No other man will scorn, Where love will bless the earth And peace its paths adorn I dream a world where all Will know sweet freedom's way, Where greed no longer saps the soul Nor avarice blights our day. A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the earth And every man is free, Where wretchedness will hang its head And joy, like a pearl, Attends the needs of all mankind- Of such I dream, my world!

Langston Hughes / quote

08Undated

Question and AnswerDurban, Birmingham,Cape Town, Alabama,Johannesburg, Watts,The earth aroundStruggling, fighting,Dying--for what?A world to gain.Groping, hoping,Waiting--for what?A world to gain.Dreams kicked asunder,Why not go under?There's a world to gain.But suppose I don't want it,Why take it?To remake it.

Langston Hughes / quote

09Undated

The sea is a desert of waves,A wilderness of water.

Langston Hughes / quote

10Undated

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

Langston Hughes / quote

11Undated

Joe has sense enough to knowHe is a god.So many gods don't know.

Langston Hughes / quote

12Undated

Sometimes a crumb fallsFrom the tables of joy, Sometimes a boneIs flung.To some peopleLove is given, To othersOnly heaven.

Langston Hughes / quote

13Undated

OppressionNow dreamsAre not availableTo the dreamers,Nor songsTo the singers.In some landsDark nightAnd cold steelPrevail--But the dreamWill come back,And the songBreakIts jail.

Langston Hughes / quote

14Undated

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

Langston Hughes / quote

15Undated

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 / quote

16Undated

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 / quote

17Undated

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

Langston Hughes / quote

18Undated

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.

Langston Hughes / quote

19Undated

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.

Langston Hughes / quote

20Undated

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

Langston Hughes / quote

21Undated

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 / quote

22Undated

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.

Langston Hughes / quote

23Undated

Violent anger makes me physically ill.

Langston Hughes / quote

24Undated

In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.

Langston Hughes / quote