Countee Cullen Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Countee Cullen

  Hurt, Truth, Poetry

  137 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Hard Work, Secret, Break

  88 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Poet, Ifs

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.31, Library of America

  65 Copy quote

• 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.

  Countee Cullen

  Wings, Ties, Earth

  Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books

  33 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Giving, Poetry, Way

  Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books

  44 Copy quote

• We shall not always plant while others reap

  Countee Cullen

  Plant, Reap

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.93, Library of America

  45 Copy quote

• We were not made to eternally weep.

  Countee Cullen

  Made

  Countee Cullen, “From The Dark Tower”

  35 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Home, Heart, Keys

  Countee Cullen, “The Shroud Of Color”

  45 Copy quote

• I have a rendezvous with life.

  Countee Cullen

  Rendezvous

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.22, Library of America

  27 Copy quote

• 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?

  Countee Cullen

  Strong, Stars, Men

  1925 On These I Stand,'Heritage'.

  63 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Heart, Ends

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.179, Library of America

  18 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Pain, Names, Dames

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.51, Library of America

  35 Copy quote

• 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.

  Countee Cullen

  Prayer, Wine, Dark

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.52, Library of America

  20 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Black, Poet, Curious

  "Yet Do I Marvel" l. 13 (1925)

  23 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Past, Years, Snow

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.64, Library of America

  28 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Atmosphere, Conservative, Methodists

  Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books

  84 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Lying, Loss, Love Is

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.107, Library of America

  11 Copy quote

• [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.

  Countee Cullen

  White, People, Feelings

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  Countee Cullen

  Pride, Night, Blood

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.66, Library of America

  17 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  God, Fashion, Dark

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.66, Library of America

  11 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Stars, Dark, Night

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.93, Library of America

  11 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Cutting, Black, Battle

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.51, Library of America

  12 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Heart, Glowing, Sick

  1925 On These I Stand,'Heritage'.

  12 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  God, Doubt, Kind

  Countee Cullen (2013). “Countee Cullen: Collected Poems: (American Poets Project #32)”, p.42, Library of America

  12 Copy quote

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

  Countee Cullen

  Life And Death, Grace, Life Is

  Countee Cullen, Gerald Lyn Early (1991). “My soul's high song: the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance”, Doubleday Books

  12 Copy quote

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