Countee Cullen Quotes

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.

There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.

I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.

If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.

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?

We shall not always plant while others reap

The key to all strange things is in thy heart..../ My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.

My poetry has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.

We were not made to eternally weep.

Dame Poverty gave me my name, And Pain godfathered me.

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.

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

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.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

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.

[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.

Never love with all your heart, It only ends in aching.

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.

I cut my teeth as the black raccoon-- For implements of battle.

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind

Ever at Thy glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black.

The loss of love is a terrible thing; They lie who say that death is worse.

Lord, I fashion dark gods, too, Daring even to give You Dark despairing features

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, White stars, is no less lovely being dark

Whatever lives is granted breath But by the grace and sufferance of Death.

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.

Lord, forgive me if my need Sometimes shapes a human creed.

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.

Africa? A book one thumbs Listlessly, till slumber comes.

Quaint, outlandish heathen gods Black men fashion out of rods