Langston Hughes

I have seen the world, and it is a strange place.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

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.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

I have eaten in the kitchen when company comes, but I’ll be at the table when company’s gone.

When a man starts out with nothing, he's got to have a lot of brass to get somewhere.

I am so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

The past has been a mint of blood and sorrow. That must not be true of tomorrow.

I have had my say about the world, and the world has had its say about me.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed. While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.

I am the American heartbreak—the rock on which Freedom stumped its toe.

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

The night is beautiful, so the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, so the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

I look at the world from awakening eyes in a black face—and this is what I see.

I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.