Quote

Good evening, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace.

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
Guts
Ruffles
Cat
Deferred
Evening
Boogie
Heard
Rumble
Literature
Lace
Dream
Bass
Woogie
Good
Daddy
Twining
Midnight
Treble

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I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.
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I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.
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7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.
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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?
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Hard as I try, daddy-o, I really do not like concert singers. They are always singing in some foreign language.
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There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.
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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?
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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.
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Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed - Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
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I do not want no pretty woman. First thing you know, you fall in love with her-then you got to kill somebody about her. She'll make you so jealous, you'll bust!
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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.
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Everything there is but lovin' leaves a rust on your old soul
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Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.
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I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.
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Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.
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I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.
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This is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America - this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.
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Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
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Wear it Like a banner For the proud? Not like a shroud.
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