“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?”
“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.”
“To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only Heaven.”
“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.”
“Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.”
“I wish the rent Was heaven sent.”
“7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.”
“The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.”
“Life dosent frighten me at all.”
“Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.”
“Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.”
“One can't judge till one's forty; before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.”
“Force a hand, and it will fight you. But convince and mind to think as you want it to think, an you have an ally”
“I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more”
“Throwing herself into learning helped Miri ignore the painful chill of solitude around her.”
“We do not fear being called meticulous, inclining as we do to the view that only the exhaustive can be truly interesting.”
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