What a difference a border makes: on one side of an invisible line, food; on the other side, none. On one side, peace. On the other side, war. On one side, quiet in the sunlight. On the other side the dangerous chee-eep, chee-eep, chee-eep, that was not birds, the BANG! of shells, the whine of sirens, and the bursting of bombs over crowded cities.

— Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes Quotes

She worked for the Studevants, who treated her like a dog. She stood it. Had to stand it; or work for poorer white folks who would treat her worse; or go jobless.

— Langston Hughes

And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose slowly, slowly, Dimming, Hiding, The light of my dream. Rose until it touched the sky – The wall.

— Langston Hughes

Cora was like a tree – once rooted, she stood, in spite of storms and strife, wind, and rocks, in the earth.

— Langston Hughes

Adventure is a great thing,” said Simple, “which should be in everybody’s life. According to ‘The Late Late Show’ on TV, in the old days when Americans headed West in covered wagons, they was almost sure to run into adventure – at the very least a battle with the Red Skins. Nowadays, if you want to run into adventure, go to Alabama or Mississippi, where you can battle with the White Skins.

— Langston Hughes

Mortal frailty, greed, and error, know no boundary lines. The explosives of war do not care whose hands fashion them. Certainly, both Marxists and Christians can be cruel. Would that Christ came back to save us all. We do not know how to save ourselves.

— Langston Hughes

Hey you rising workers everywhere greetings.

— Langston Hughes

There are some very stupid men in the capitals of the Western World – the more stupid because they think they are so wise. It would seem to me that almost anybody would know by now that colored peoples do not like to be ruled by outside forces, Jim Crowed, segregated, told what to do by aliens, and in general kicked around.

— Langston Hughes

We represent the end of race. And the Fascists know that when there is no more race, there will be no more capitalism, and no more war, and no more money for the munition makers, because the workers of the world will have triumphed.

— Langston Hughes

As for reading books, even far-out books, even beatnik books, fine. Only there are not enough books for me down South, which is one reason I came to New York.

— Langston Hughes

Open your heart, and life will provide unlimited abundance.

— Langston Hughes

Once, when I were a child, I were kicked by a small mule. Neither the mule nor I had any sense. I were trying to make the mule go one way, but the mule was trying to make me go another. I were for hitching the mule onto a plow. The mule were for nibbling grass. So, after that kicking, I learned right then and there to respect animals and peoples when they are not of the same mind as you are.

— Langston Hughes

Bartender, tell this man to vacate my person.

— Langston Hughes

I would like to see an America where people of any race, color or creed may live on a plane of cultural, material well-being, cooperating unhindered by sectarian, racial, or factional prejudices that do nobody any good.

— Langston Hughes

I learnt that the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it, even if in the beginning you think you can’t do it at all.

— Langston Hughes

When a woman wants to get ahead, she cannot tie a millstone to her feet. Most men is millstones.

— Langston Hughes

They could not understand that there is some few people in the world who do good without being asked. It were a hot day, I were a little boy, and ice-cream cones are always good. And that man just looked at me and thought I would like one – which I did. That is one reason why I do not hate all white folks today because some white folks will do good without being asked or hauled up before the Supreme Court to have a law promulgated against them.

— Langston Hughes

Who said I want to go to war? If I do, it ain’t the same war the President wants to go to. No, sir, I been hanging on a rope in Alabama too long.

— Langston Hughes

The silence inside the library, the big chairs, and long tables, and the fact that the library was always there and didn’t seem to have a mortgage on it, or any sort of insecurity about it – all of that made me love it.

— Langston Hughes

Why did white folks think you could live on nothing but art? Strange! Too strange! Too strange!

— Langston Hughes

Now, In June, When the night is a vast softness Filled with blue stars, And broken shafts of moon-glimmer Fall upon the earth, Am I too old to see the fairies dance? I cannot find them any more.

— Langston Hughes
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