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

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

When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.

When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself

Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better.

For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn’t write anything.

The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And the Negroes had but few pegs to fall.

I dream a world… where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

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

Hang yourself, poet, in your own words. Otherwise, you are dead.

Out of love, No regrets– Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets– Though the return Be never.

Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.

Life dosent frighten me at all.

I stay cool, and dig all jive, That’s the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.

Love is a naked shadow, On a gnarled and naked tree.

If one could have a wish, or an alternative life, I would’ve liked to have been John Lennon.

Dreams are built, and hearts are broken, by things that are said, but not meant.

I dream of things that are not and ask why not.

Did not one spend the first half of one’s days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?

I aim for the stars, and winning a world title will not be a fulfilment of a dream for me. It never has been.

My dream was maybe someday, one night I can be a guest on a talk show, and then I will have achieved everything I want.

Edward: It wasn’t the worst night of my life. Jake: Did it make the top ten? Edward: Possibly. But, if I had been able to take your place last night, it would not have made the top ten of the best nights of my life. Dream about that.

Dare to dream and watch your dreams dare.