Works
The Weary Blues
Langston HughesThe Weary Blues
Langston HughesFamous Langston Hughes Quotes
“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
Source: The Collected Poems
Langston Hughes Quotes about dreams
“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.”
"Dreams," from the anthology Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers, ed. Arna Bontemps (1941)
“Dream within a dream,
Our dream deferred.
Good morning, daddy!
Ain’t you heard?”
"Island"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Variant: What happens
to a dream deferred?
Daddy, ain’t you heard?
“There’s a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.”
"Same in Blues"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Variant: A certain amount
of nothing
in a dream deferred.
“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.”
Let America Be America Again (1935)
Langston Hughes Quotes about love
“7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.”
Source: The Collected Poems
"Theme from English B"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
“Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.”
Source: The Collected Poems
Langston Hughes: Trending quotes
“Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.”
"Song for a Dark Girl" (l. 1-4), from Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
Langston Hughes Quotes
“Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.”
"A Note on Humor", from The Book of Negro Humor https://books.google.com/books?id=60FkAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Humor+is+laughing+at+what+you+haven%27t+got+when+you+ought+to+have+it.%22, p. vii (1966)
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?”
"Harlem"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Context: What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore —
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over —
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
"I, Too, Sing America," in the magazine Survey Graphic (March 1925); reprinted in Selected Poems (1959)
“You are white —
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.”
"Theme from English B"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Context: 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.
Let America Be America Again (1935)
Context: Sure, call me any ugly name you choose —
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
"Motto"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Variant: My motto,
As I live and learn,
is:
Dig And Be Dug
In Return.
“I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.”
"The Black Man Speaks," from Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943)
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers," from The Weary Blues (1926)
“I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.”
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Context: 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.
“The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.”
Source: The Collected Poems
“Frosting
Freedom
Is just frosting
On somebody else's
Cake--
And so must be
Till we
Learn how to
Bake.”
Source: The Panther and the Lash
“O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!”
Let America Be America Again (1935)
"Final Curve"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
“They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed —
I, too, am America.”
"I, Too, Sing America," in the magazine Survey Graphic (March 1925); reprinted in Selected Poems (1959)
"Morning After," (l. 1-6), from Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
“You talk like they
don’t kick dreams
around downtown.”
"Comment on Curb"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
“Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.”
"Democracy"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
“Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.”
"Song for a Dark Girl" (l. 11-12), from Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
“Good evening, daddy
I know you’ve heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred”
"Boogie: 1 a.m."
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
“The night is beautiful,
So are the faces of my people.”
"My People," in the magazine Poems in Crisis (October 1923); reprinted in The Weary Blues (1926)
“I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers," from The Weary Blues (1926)
“Why should it be my loneliness,
Why should it be my song,
Why should it be my dream
deferred
overlong?”
"Tell Me"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
"Theme from English B"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Let America Be America Again (1935)
The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, V. 13, The Big Sea (2002), p. 36
The Big Sea (1940)
