“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
Langston Hughes
Born place: in Joplin, Missouri, The United States
Born date February 1, 1902
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“To clothe the penguins is a very serious business. At present when a penguin desires a penguin he knows precisely what he desires and his lust is limited by an exact knowledge of its object. At this moment two or three couples of penguins are making love on the beach. See with what simplicity! No one pays any attention and the actors themselves do not seem to be greatly preoccupied. But when the female penguins are clothed, the male penguin will not form so exact a notion of what it is that attracts him to them. His indeterminate desires will fly out into all sorts of dreams and illusions; in short, father, he will know love and its mad torments. And all the time the female penguins will cast down their eyes and bite their lips, and take on airs as if they kept a treasure under their clothes! . . . what a pity!”
― Anatole France, quote from Penguin Island
“I have a hunch that our obsession with photography arises from an unspoken pessimism; it is our nature to believe the good things will not last. . . But photos provide a false sense of security> like our flawed memory, they are guaranteed to fade. . . . We take photographs in order to remember, but it is in the nature of a photograph to forget (pg 157)”
― Michelle Richmond, quote from The Year of Fog
“It's like a cat bell, so pretty yet alarming, because i know I'm letting myself fall when maybe I should fly away. But the loneliness inside, it's so fucking painful. It's that longing feeling that scratches to escape and makes you want to blurt out all kinds of gushy crap just to get the girl to look at you...I hate it. Love its melty-ness and hate its leash around my neck.”
― Lisa McMann, quote from Dead to You
“Bei gleicher Umgebung lebt doch jeder in einer anderen Welt.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, quote from The Wisdom of Life
“Our beliefs are merely stories in our minds that we ourselves wrote long ago. Knowing that, don’t you feel empowered to rewrite them if they no longer serve you? Scan your mind for viruses called fears, anxieties, judgments, doubts, hatred and despair, and put a little note next to them that says “Outdated; no longer valid.” I’ve learned so much from my mistakes, I think I’m gonna go out there and make some more! —Anonymous”
― Timber Hawkeye, quote from Buddhist Boot Camp Manuscript
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A Monstrous Regiment...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.
