Quotes from Selected Poems

Langston Hughes ·  297 pages

Rating: (5.9K votes)


“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.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from Selected Poems


“Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the goodness
Be wasted forever.

Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the return
Be never.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from Selected Poems


“The sea is a desert of waves,
A wilderness of water.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from Selected Poems


“I will take your heart.
I will take your soul out of your body
As though I were God.
I will not be satisfied
With the little words you say to me.
I will not be satisfied
With the touch of your hand
Nor the sweet of your lips alone.
I will take your heart for mine.
I will take your soul.
I will be God when it comes to you.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from Selected Poems


“The speaker catches fire
looking at their faces.
His words
jump down to stand
in listener's places.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from Selected Poems



“Joe has sense enough to know
He is a god.
So many gods don't know.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from Selected Poems


About the author

Langston Hughes
Born place: in Joplin, Missouri, The United States
Born date February 1, 1902
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I'll burn myself, or I'll cut myself. For a burn or a cut might be shown, might be nursed, might scar or heal, would be a miserable kind of emblem; would anyway be there, on the surface of her body, rather than corroding it from within. Now the thought came to her again, that she might scar herself in some way. It came, like the solution to a problem: I won't be doing it like some hysterical girl. I won't be hoping she'll come catch me at it. It won't be like lying on the sitting-room floor. I'll be doing it for myself, as a secret.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Night Watch


“the unknown breeds dragons in map margins”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Shards of Honour


“Alek: "Am I that obvious?"
Deryn: "No. Im just dead clever.”
― Scott Westerfeld, quote from Behemoth


“There are often beams in our eye that we know not of. Let us therefore ask that our eye may become single, for then we ourselves shall become wholly single.”
― Vincent van Gogh, quote from The Letters of Vincent van Gogh


“I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence.”
― Patrick deWitt, quote from The Sisters Brothers


Interesting books

At the Mountains of Madness
(24.8K)
At the Mountains of...
by H.P. Lovecraft
Trout Fishing in America
(9.7K)
Trout Fishing in Ame...
by Richard Brautigan
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
(22.1K)
We Wish to Inform Yo...
by Philip Gourevitch
Child of God
(24.4K)
Child of God
by Cormac McCarthy
New York
(25.7K)
New York
by Edward Rutherfurd
Mister Monday
(31.9K)
Mister Monday
by Garth Nix

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.