Best 25 quotes of Countee Cullen on MyQuotes

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Quaint, outlandish heathen gods Black men fashion out of rods

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

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

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

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

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.

[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.

We shall not always plant while others reap

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

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?

What is last year's snow to me, Last year's anything? The tree Budding yearly must forget How its past arose or set

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