Countee Cullen famous quotes

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

#Hard Work #Secret #Break

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 #Add #Helping

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

#Atmosphere #Conservative #Methodists

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

#Home #Heart #Sea

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

#Giving #Poetry #Way

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

#Black #Poet #Curious

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

Dame Poverty gave me my name, And Pain godfathered me.
-- Countee Cullen

#Pain #Poverty

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 #Snow #Tree

We shall not always plant while others reap
-- Countee Cullen

#Plant #Reap

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

#God #Fashion #Dark

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

#God #Doubt #Kind

[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

#People #Feelings #Moments

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

#Cutting #Black #Battle

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

#Dark #Night #Lovely

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.
-- Countee Cullen

#Jesus #Father #Heart

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

#Book

Quaint, outlandish heathen gods Black men fashion out of rods
-- Countee Cullen

#Fashion #Men #Black

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

#Poet

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.
-- Countee Cullen

#Cutting #Wife #Sorrow

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

#Heart #Ends

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

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

#Forgive Me #Forgiving #Needs

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

#Heart #Glowing #Sick

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

We were not made to eternally weep.
-- Countee Cullen

#Made

I have a rendezvous with life.
-- Countee Cullen

#Rendezvous

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.
-- Countee Cullen

#Heart #Giving #Lovers

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

#Lying #Loss #Love Is

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

#Life And Death #Grace #Life Is

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