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What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore —
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over —
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

— Langston Hughes Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

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Dreams

More quotes by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

The night is beautiful,
So are the faces of my people.

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

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Langston Hughes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.