Countee Cullen quotes:
-
What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?
-
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, So I make an idle boast; Jesus of the twice-turned cheek Lamb of God, although I speak With my mouth thus, in my heart Do I play a double part.
-
Give but a grain of the heart's rich seed, Confine some under cover, And when love goes, bid him God-speed. And find another lover.
-
I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.
-
Dame Poverty gave me my name, And Pain godfathered me.
-
Quaint, outlandish heathen gods Black men fashion out of rods
-
There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.' In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things - read and write - and wait.
-
All day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood.
-
Lord, I fashion dark gods, too, Daring even to give You Dark despairing features
-
Not for myself I make this prayer, But for this race of mine That stretches forth from shadowed places Dark hands for bread and wine.
-
Lord, forgive me if my need Sometimes shapes a human creed.
-
For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.
-
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing.
-
I have a rendezvous with life.
-
What is last year's snow to me, Last year's anything? The tree Budding yearly must forget How its past arose or set
-
[W]e have always resented the natural inclination of most white people to demand spirituals the moment it is known that a Negro is about to sing. So often the request has seemed to savor of the feeling that we could do this and this alone.
-
There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.
-
The loss of love is a terrible thing; They lie who say that death is worse.
-
Your love to me was like an unread book.
-
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
-
Ever at Thy glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black.
-
The truth is... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.
-
If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.
-
The key to all strange things is in thy heart..../ My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.
-
We shall not always plant while others reap
-
My poetry has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.
-
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
-
Never love with all your heart, It only ends in aching.
-
We were not made to eternally weep.
-
Whatever lives is granted breath But by the grace and sufferance of Death.
-
I cut my teeth as the black raccoon-- For implements of battle.
-
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
-
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, White stars, is no less lovely being dark
-
Africa? A book one thumbs Listlessly, till slumber comes.
-
Death cut the strings that gave me life, And handed me to Sorrow, The only kind of middle wife My folks could beg or borrow.