Countee Cullen Quotes

In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things - read and write - and wait.

Man dreams that he is more than a leaf on a tree.'
-Leaves by Countee Cullen

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

So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

We shall not always plant while others reap

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.

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

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

If You Should Go
Love, leave me like the light,
The gently passing day;
We would not know, but for the night,
When it has slipped away.
Go quietly; a dream,
When done, should leave no trace
That it has lived, except a gleam
Across the dreamer's face.

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

Your love to me was like an unread book.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

We were not made to eternally weep.

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.

And if I please you so, my lover,
Remember praise is comely.

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