Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hugheswas an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth1 February 1902
CityJoplin, MO
CountryUnited States of America
firsts boomerang jokes
Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.
baby understood ifs
I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.
walks fronts walking
Road's in front o' me, Nothin' to do but walk.
harvest
Harriet Tubman lived to see the harvest.
white black would-be
Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.
jobs half cold
I felt very bad in Washington. . . I didn't like my job, and I didn't know what was going to happen to me, and I was cold and half-hungry, so I wrote a great many poems.
love-is people heaven
To some people Love is given, To others Only Heaven.
interesting reproduction objects
A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.
home radio misery
Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.
new-york long georgia
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.
dream new-york tunnels
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.
moon color talking
When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.
giving honor blind
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.
heart white yesterday
I’s been livin’ a long time in yesterday, Sandy chile, an’ I knows there ain’t no room in de world fo’ nothin’ mo’n love. I know, chile! Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ‘nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body – great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil – ‘cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stay an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.