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I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes
Age: 66 †
Born: 1901
Born: February 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 22
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Joplin
Missouri
James Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes
Individual
Emotions
Political
Express
Writing
Poetry
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Believe
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More quotes by Langston Hughes

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Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!
Langston Hughes
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Harriet Tubman lived to see the harvest.
Langston Hughes
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Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear.
Langston Hughes
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Your explanation depresses me, I said. Your nonsense depresses me, said Simple.
Langston Hughes
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Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.
Langston Hughes
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Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better.
Langston Hughes
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Rest at pale evening... A tall slim tree... Night coming tenderly Black like me
Langston Hughes
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Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.
Langston Hughes
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Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.
Langston Hughes
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This morning I paid seventy cents for two little old dried-up slivers of bacon and one cockeyed egg. It took me till noon to get my appetite back.
Langston Hughes
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LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY! True anyhow no matter how many Liars use those words.
Langston Hughes
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Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.
Langston Hughes
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Frosting Freedom Is just frosting On somebody else's Cake-- And so must be Till we Learn how to Bake.
Langston Hughes
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There is no color line in art.
Langston Hughes
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For poems are like rainbows they escape you quickly.
Langston Hughes
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They [the police] learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the station house.
Langston Hughes
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When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.
Langston Hughes
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Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing You do not know I die?
Langston Hughes
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Both of them were very good and kind - the one who went to church and the one who didn't. And no doubt from them I learned to like both Christians and sinners equally well.
Langston Hughes
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A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.
Langston Hughes