Claude McKay Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.

Claude McKay
Upon the clothes behind the tenement,
That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines, Linking each flat, but to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.

Claude McKay
Feelings of bitterness are a natural part of the black man's birthright. To ask him to render up his bitterness is asking him to part with his soul.

Claude McKay
Be not deceived, for every deed ye do
I could match—out match: am I not Afric's son,
Black of that black land where black deeds are done?

Claude McKay
Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs.

Claude McKay
"Oh them legs!" Jake thought. "Them tantalizing brown legs! "...Brown girls rouged and painted like dark pansies. Brown flesh draped in soft colorful clothes. Brown lips full and pouted for sweet kissing. Brown breasts throbbing with love.

Claude McKay
The deep-dyed color, the thickness, the closeness of it. The noises of Harlem. The sugared laughter. The honey-talk on its streets. And all night long, ragtime and "blues" playing somewhere,... singing somewhere, dancing somewhere! Oh, the contagious fever of Harlem. Burning everywhere in dark-eyed Harlem.

Claude McKay
Dere is no land dat can compare
Wid you where'er I roam;
In all de wul' none like you fair,
My native land, my home.

Claude McKay
I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise, I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true; But I can feel and I can write the word; The best of me is but the least of you.

Claude McKay
Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet
In Harlem wandering from street to street.

Claude McKay
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.

Claude McKay
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night.

Claude McKay
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I must confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.

Claude McKay
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.

Claude McKay
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart
I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch
I bear it nobly as I live my part.

Claude McKay
Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days,
Even the sacred moments when we played,
All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,
At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade.

Claude McKay
Adventure-seasoned and storm-buffeted,
I shun all signs of anchorage, because
The zest of life exceeds the bound of laws.

Claude McKay
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.

Claude McKay
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

Claude McKay
The spirituals and the blues were not created out of sweet deceit. Spirituals and blues contain sublimated bitterness and humility, pathos and bewilderment.

Claude McKay
I know the dark delight of being strange,
The penalty of difference in the crowd,
The loneliness of wisdom among fools

Claude McKay
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.

Claude McKay
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Claude McKay
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

Claude McKay
I have forgotten much, but still remember
The poinsiana's red, blood-red in warm December.

Claude McKay