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“Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.”
Langston Hughes25 likes
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“Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.”
“Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly.”
“Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The Jewish people and the Negro people both know the meaning of Nordic supremacy. We have both looked into the eyes of terror.”
“Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.”
“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.”
“Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.”
“Harlem 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?”
“My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
“My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.”
“Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see That without the dust the rainbow Would not be.”
“It's such a Bore Being always Poor.”
“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!”
“Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.”
“Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their 'white' culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work.”
“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.”
“Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.”
“Looks like what drives me crazy Don't have no effect on you-- But I'm gonna keep on at it Till it drives you crazy, too.”
“Writing is like travelling. It's wonderful to go somewhere, but you get tired of staying.”
“Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.”
“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.”
“Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-”
“Violent anger makes me physically ill.”
“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.”
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?”
“When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.”
“Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.”
“We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.”
“Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.”
“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.”
“I live in Harlem, New York City. I am unmarried. I like 'Tristan,' goat's milk, short novels, lyric poems, heat, simple folk, boats and bullfights; I dislike 'Aida,' parsnips, long novels, narrative poems, cold, pretentious folk, buses and bridges.”
“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.”
“Even the 'Negro' shows like 'Amos and Andy' and 'Beulah' are written largely by white writers - the better to preserve the stereotypes, I imagine.”
“Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.”
“I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.”
“Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.”
“The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water.”
“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.”
“What happens to a dream deferred?”
“Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who can escape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art.”
“Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.”
“I stay cool, and dig all jive, That's the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.”
“To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering 'I want to be white,' hidden in the aspirations of his people, to 'Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!'”
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