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Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes Quotes

Poet

American poet, writer, playwright, editor, and actor. Langston Hughes is one of the most prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance, known for his poetry and prose. His works often explore themes of race, class, and identity, and have been beloved by readers.

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Famous Langston Hughes Quotes

“A dog gets lonesome just like a human. He wants to associate with other dogs, but when they take him out, the poor dog is on a leash and cannot run around.”

Want Humans Running Poor Dog Associates Lonesome Leashes

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“Sometimes I wish the public were equally aware of the men of our race in the cultural fields. You, for instance, have you ever bought a book by a Negro writer?”

Men Book Sometimes Reading Wish Race Fields He Man Instance Books And Reading

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“I do not want no pretty woman. First thing you know, you fall in love with her-then you got to kill somebody about her. She'll make you so jealous, you'll bust!”

Knows Want Firsts Fall Beauty Falling In Love Jealous Pretty Woman

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“If you want to honor me, give some young boy or girl who's coming along trying to create arts and write and compose and sing and act and paint and dance and make something out of the beauties of the Negro race-give that child some help.”

Ifs Want Giving Writing Trying Children Art Helping Young Girl Race Boys Honor Paint

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“The first of the month falls every month, too, North or South. And them white folks who sends bills never forgets to send them-the phone bill, the furniture bill, the water bill, the gas bill, insurance, house rent.”

Firsts Death Fall House Water White Forget Months Bills South Folks Phones Gas Never Forget Furniture

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“This morning I paid seventy cents for two little old dried-up slivers of bacon and one cockeyed egg. It took me till noon to get my appetite back.”

Littles Two Morning Eating Paid Eggs Appetite Cents Seventies Noon

Author:Langston Hughes

“Don't come giving me, who's old enough to die and too near blind to create anything any more anyhow, a great big banquet that you eat up in honor of your own stomachs as much as in honor of me- who's toothless and can't eat.”

Giving Enough Bigs Dies Honor Blind Banquets Toothless

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“They [the police] learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the station house.”

Used House Beats Police Stations Intolerance Riot Harlem

Author:Langston Hughes

“Well, when Christ comes back this time, I hope He comes back mad His own self. I hope He drives the Jim Crowers out of their high places, every living last one of them from Washington to Texas.”

Wells Self Lasts Jesus Christ Mad Texas Jim Crow High Places

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.”

Home Heard Misery Radio Neighborhood Slums

Book:The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Works for children and young adults: poetry, fiction, and other writing

Source: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Works for children and young adults: poetry, fiction, and other writing

“As long as what is is-and Georgia is Georgia-I will take Harlem for mine. At least, if trouble comes, I will have my own window to shoot from.”

Ifs Long My Own Trouble New York Mines Window Georgia Harlem

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.”

Dream New York Nightmare Chocolate Pot Honey Tunnels Melting Subway Lemons Downtown Harlem Bronx Vinegar Melting Pot Limes Rum Caramel

Book:Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs

Source: Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs

“Teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth because I do not want it to fall on me-nor Thee-nor anybody living. Amen!”

Want Earth Together Fall Lord Teach Please Thee Bombs Atoms Amen Nuclear Power Atom Bomb

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.”

Lines Talking Poverty Color Moon Police Trade Unions Colony Trade Unions

Book:The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs

Source: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs

“Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.”

Should Would Be Nations Black White Prejudice Racial Prejudice Creole

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.”

Ifs Government Rights Ought Shots Spots Bothered Jim Crow Buffalo Elk

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“When I were a young man, I used to play baseball and steal bases just like Jackie Robinson. If the empire would rule me out, I would get mad and hit the empire.”

Ifs Men Play Young Used Sports Baseball Bases Mad Stealing Young Man Empires Jackie

Author:Langston Hughes

“Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.”

Giving Made Poor Hell Cold Taste Summer Fortune Winter Tenants

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“Hard as I try, daddy-o, I really do not like concert singers. They are always singing in some foreign language.”

Trying Hard Language Singing Singers Concerts Daddy Foreign Language

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“It were depression, too. They cut my wages down once at the foundry. They cut my wages down again. Then they cut my wages out, also the job.”

Jobs Cutting Unemployment Wages

Book:The Best of Simple

Source: The Best of Simple

“These feet have walked ten thousand miles working for white folks and another ten thousand keeping up with colored.”

White Feet Walking Thousand Ten Folks Miles Thousand Miles

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“Road's in front o' me, Nothin' to do but walk.”

Walks Fronts Walking

Book:The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Works for children and young adults: poetry, fiction, and other writing

Source: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Works for children and young adults: poetry, fiction, and other writing

“I know how to handle women who act like ladies, but my landlady ain't no lady. Sometimes I even wish I was living with my wife again so I could have my own place and not have no landladies.”

Knows Sometimes Wish Women My Own Know How Wife My Wife Handle

Book:The Early Simple Stories

Source: The Early Simple Stories

“I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.”

Writing Believe Political Individual Emotion Fiction Creative Reactions Creative Writing

Book:I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey

Source: I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey

“It's such a Bore Being always Poor.”

Literature Poor Bores

Book:Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

Source: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

About the Author

Born: February 1, 1902
Died: May 22, 1967
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 225

Related Topics

Poetry African Americans Blacks Race Poem Racism Race Relations Dream People America

Popular Topics

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Books & Sources

Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest WritingsRelated source material

The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairsRelated source material

The Poems, 1951-1967Related source material

The Best of SimpleRelated source material

The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: The poems, 1921-1940Related source material

The Early Simple StoriesRelated source material

The Return of SimpleRelated source material

Selected Poems of Langston HughesRelated source material

The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: The poems, 1941-1950Related source material

The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Works for children and young adults: poetry, fiction, and other writingRelated source material

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