Harlem Renaissance Quotes:

If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.

- Zora Neale Hurston

topic: Pain, Silent, Harlem Renaissance

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

- Langston Hughes

source: Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper, Langston Hughes (1996). “Not So Simple: The "Simple" Stories by Langston Hughes”, p.35, University of Missouri Press

topic: Inspirational, Artist, Black History, Harlem Renaissance

Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.

- Zora Neale Hurston

source: Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (1979). “I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader”, p.155, Feminist Press at CUNY

topic: Happiness, Inspiring, Success, Make Me Angry, Harlem

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

- Langston Hughes

source: "Dreams" l. 1 (1929)

topic: Love, Inspirational, Broken Heart, Inspirational Dream, Columnists

When I think of the Harlem Renaissance, I think of bright colors, and bold, dynamic art. African American artists of the period were, in large measure, breaking out of the constrictions white society had set for them. They were claiming and remaking their own images, and doing so in bold and striking ways.

- Nikki Grimes

source: Source: www.hbook.com

topic: Art, Thinking, Color, Bright Colors, Harlem Renaissance

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

- Zora Neale Hurston

source: Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (1979). “I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader”, p.246, Feminist Press at CUNY

topic: Life, Inspiring, Time, Eyes Watching, Harlem

The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance.

- Aberjhani

source: Aberjhani (2014). “Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry”, p.102, Lulu.com

topic: Creative, Humanity, Victory, Harlem Renaissance

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.

- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

topic: Appreciation, Taken, Athlete, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance

I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.

- Langston Hughes

topic: Mean, Political, Democracy, Racism In America, Harlem

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

- Langston Hughes

source: Langston Hughes, Dolan Hubbard (2003). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes”

topic: Life, Determination, Want, Will And Determination, Harlem Renaissance

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

- Langston Hughes

topic: Summer, Rain, Humor, Humor And Laughter, Humor Laughter

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

- Zora Neale Hurston

topic: Love, Inspirational, Life, Souls In Love, I Love You Like

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

- Zora Neale Hurston

source: Zora Neale Hurston, Cheryl A. Wall (1997). “Sweat”, p.43, Rutgers University Press

topic: Writing, Science, Curiosity, Medical Research, Harlem Renaissance

Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.

- Zora Neale Hurston

topic: Inspiring, Happiness, Fear, Brooms, Harlem

I am particularly conscious of my connection to the poets of the Harlem Renaissance because I, too, am a Black poet, born into, and shaped by, the very community in which those poets of the past produced so much of the work we associate with the Harlem Renaissance. We speak from the same place, both literally and metaphorically.

- Nikki Grimes

source: Source: www.hbook.com

topic: Past, Community, Black, Harlem Renaissance

When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.

- Langston Hughes

source: Langston Hughes (2004). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Gospel plays, operas, and later dramatic works”, p.201, University of Missouri Press

topic: Wedding, People, Soul, Wedding Toast, Harlem Renaissance

As one who loves literature, art, music and history, I've been deeply rooted in the Harlem Renaissance for many years.

- Debbie Allen

topic: Art, Years, Literature, Love Literature, Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?

- Langston Hughes

source: "Harlem" l. 1 (1951)

topic: Love, Dream, Sun, Dry Up, Raisins

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

- Zora Neale Hurston

source: World Tomorrow "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928)

topic: Knives, Oysters, World, Lurking, African Women

What do we call our Harlem Renaissance? Maybe in the future, it won't be just Latino, maybe it'll be more multi-multi, because, you know, people are such fusions now, of so many different cultures.

- Sandra Cisneros

source: "Talking in Our Pajamas: A Conversation with Sandra Cisneros on Finding Your Voice, Fear of Highways, Tacos, Travel, and the Need for Peace in the World". Interview with Ruth Behar, quod.lib.umich.edu.

topic: People, Fusion, Different, Harlem Renaissance

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

- Langston Hughes

source: Langston Hughes (2002). “The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs”, p.525, University of Missouri Press

topic: Happiness, Laughter, Humor, Humor And Laughter, Humor Laughter

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

- Langston Hughes

topic: Beauty, Nature, Fall, Buttocks, Harlem Renaissance

When reading about what may be described as the lesser celebrated heroic figures of the Harlem Renaissance, we rarely get a definitive look at just how complicated and sometimes dangerous their everyday lives were. In fact, until the past ten years, many defined the period primarily by its well-known literary, musical, and artistic elements while overlooking the fact there was any political component to it at all.

- Aberjhani

topic: Reading, Past, Years, Overlooking, Harlem Renaissance

From the small clubs of the Harlem Renaissance where he began playing saxophone to world tours for the biggest of the big bands, Benny Carter redefined American jazz. From the start, his fellow musicians said the way he played the sax was amazing. They say that about me, too. (Laughter.) But I don't think they mean it in quite the same way.

- William J. Clinton

topic: Laughter, Mean, Thinking, Harlem Renaissance

I think there's some great stuff coming. I do feel that. I think we have reached our Harlem Renaissance.

- Sandra Cisneros

source: "Talking in Our Pajamas: A Conversation with Sandra Cisneros on Finding Your Voice, Fear of Highways, Tacos, Travel, and the Need for Peace in the World". Interview with Ruth Behar, quod.lib.umich.edu. 2008.

topic: Thinking, Renaissance, Stuff, Harlem Renaissance

Eric Walrond, handsome, cosmopolitan, and beguilingly enigmatic, may have been the most promising literary talent of the Harlem Renaissance.... James Davis's finely written, beautifully paced Eric Walrond is a major biography of a fascinating figure.

- David Levering Lewis

topic: Handsome, Eric, Renaissance, Enigmatic, Harlem Renaissance