Life is for the living.Death is for the dead.Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows,Help us to seeThat without the dust the rainbowWould not be.
So since I’m still here livin’,I guess I will live on.I could’ve died for love–But for livin’ I was born.
Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it.
Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-
LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY!True anyhow no matter how manyLiars use those words.
Hold fast to dreams,For if dreams dieLife is a broken-winged bird,That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
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.
Though you may hear me holler,And you may see me cry–I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,If you gonna see me die.
Looks like what drives me crazyDon’t have no effect on you–But I’m gonna keep on at itTill it drives you crazy, too.
Cheap little rhymesA cheap little tuneAre sometimes as dangerousAs a sliver of the moon.
Out of love,No regrets–Though the goodnessBe wasted forever.Out of love,No regrets–Though the returnBe never.
Pleasured equallyIn seeking as in finding,Each detail minding,Old Walt went seekingAnd finding.
I stay cool, and dig all jive,That’s the way I stay alive.My motto, as I live and learn, isDig and be dugIn return.
I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
Hold fast to dreamsfor if dreams dielife is a broken-winged birdthat can not fly.Hold fast to dreamsfor when dreams golife is a barren fieldfrozen with snow.
God in his infinite wisdomDid not make me very wise-So when my actions are stupidThey hardly take God by surprise.
I’ve known rivers:I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Words Like FreedomThere are words like FreedomSweet and wonderful to say.On my heartstrings freedom singsAll day everyday.There are words like LibertyThat almost make me cry.If you had known what I knowYou would know why.
When peoples cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.
Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas
The sea is a desert of waves,A wilderness of water.
Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
Joe has sense enough to knowHe is a god.So many gods don’t know.
Sometimes a crumb fallsFrom the tables of joy, Sometimes a boneIs flung.To some peopleLove is given, To othersOnly heaven.
OppressionNow dreamsAre not availableTo the dreamers,Nor songsTo the singers.In some landsDark nightAnd cold steelPrevail–But the dreamWill come back,And the songBreakIts jail.
Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.
We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.
Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people – the beauty within themselves.
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.
Very early in life, it seemed to me that there was a relationship between the problems of the Negro people in America and the Jewish people in Russia, and that the Jewish people’s problems were worse than ours.
In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.