Quotes from The Collected Poems

Langston Hughes ·  736 pages

Rating: (14.6K votes)


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?”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“Hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken-winged bird
that can not fly.

Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams go
life is a barren field
frozen with snow.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only Heaven.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises—that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumbling say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
"You are a man. Together we are building our land.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems



“I wish the rent Was heaven sent.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“Life dosent frighten me at all.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


“Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems



“Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.”
― Langston Hughes, quote from The Collected Poems


About the author

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