Harlem is a stage. It's like its own planet, from the way we dress to the swag in the way we walk and talk. — Teyana
All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive. — James A. Baldwin
I'm from where the real hustlers pile dough, the home of Rich Rich Porter, Azie, Alpo. — Big L
On 139 and Lenox Ave there's a big park, and if you're soft don't go through it when it gets dark — Big L
Greenwich Village... the village of low rents and high arts. — O. Henry
Living at the YMCA in Harlem dramatically broadened my view of the world. — Constance Baker Motley
Mark you for death, won't even talk that East or West crap.
From Watts to Lefrak, it ain't where ya from, it's where's your gat. — Big Pun
I'm ghetto chic, I'm where the hood and high fashion meet — Teyana
The Bronx is famous for two things. Hip-hop, and 26 world championships. — Kurtis Blow
Ladies and Gentleman, the Bronx is burning. — Howard Cosell
The Younger Generation comes, bringing its gifts. They are the first fruits of the Negro Renaissance. Youth speaks, and the voice of the New Negro is heard. — Alain LeRoy Locke
This is my genre...the happiness, tragedies, and the sorrows of mankind as realized in the teeming black ghetto. — Jacob Lawrence
The Negro is an exotic of the most gorgeous and superb countries of the world, and he has deep in his heart a passion for all that is splendid, rich and fanciful. — Harriet Beecher Stowe
I wanna live like Arnold, Willis and Mr. Drummond...
And keep my paper sturdy, big birds and tight herbs. — Pimp C
Short Harlem Quotes
If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it. — Zora Neale Hurston
Michael Ralph brilliantly plays the street prophet, a West Indian who foreshadows the Harlem riot. — Debbie Allen
As a Latino growing up in Spanish harlem, it's not easy trying not to be hot-headed. — Erik Estrada
And Alpo ordered guys to slaughter guys, and the whole Harlem was in tears when Rich Porter died. — Cam'ron
From 143rd Street in Harlem to the center court at Wimbledon is about as far as one can travel. — Althea Gibson
You white folks see UFOs in your dreams. You don't hear about Martians in Harlem. — Paul Mooney
I love Harlem, it's like a second home to me. — Foxy Brown
You can never tell what's in a woman's mind,
And if she's from Harlem, there's no use o' tryin — William Christopher Handy
The world has white people and black people in it. Even in Harlem. — Angela Bassett
Harlem Image Quotes
Harlem Renaissance Quotes
As one who loves literature, art, music and history, I've been deeply rooted in the Harlem Renaissance for many years. — Debbie Allen
Eric Walrond, handsome, cosmopolitan, and beguilingly enigmatic, may have been the most promising literary talent of the Harlem Renaissance.... James Davis's finely written, beautifully paced Eric Walrond is a major biography of a fascinating figure. — David Levering Lewis
The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance. — Aberjhani
What do we call our Harlem Renaissance? Maybe in the future, it won't be just Latino, maybe it'll be more multi-multi, because, you know, people are such fusions now, of so many different cultures. — Sandra Cisneros
I think there's some great stuff coming. I do feel that. I think we have reached our Harlem Renaissance. — Sandra Cisneros
The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can't go into the elegant apartments and get a stockbroker who's sniffing cocaine. — Noam Chomsky
It doesn't do good to open doors for someone who doesn't have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts. — Ronald Reagan
I bought a house in the Hollywood Hills and brought my grandmother from Harlem to live in it with me. — Sammy Davis, Jr.
You must understand as a kid of color in those days, the Harlem Globetrotters were like being movie stars. — Wilt Chamberlain
Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown. — Langston Hughes
You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We're the only ones who know what it means to be Brand X. — Dick Gregory
I pass for a hypersensitive, reclusive neurotic, which I may well be, but I hope the year won't come when my anxieties and fatigue will destroy my love of this life, of all the things that inspire me--a line of music, a face in a Vermeer portrait, a character in an opera, or a model born in Harlem. — Yves Saint Laurent
We both grew up in the atmosphere of struggle, both Ossie and me, ... I come out of Harlem and Harlem comes out of me - wailing police sirens and street parties, rumors and landlords, that cultural, spiritual scene. And Ossie came up from the South, where struggle and dying were part of everyday life. That is who we are. — Ruby Dee
We had the skirts with the slits up the side, sort of tough, sort of Spanish Harlem cool, but sweet too. — Ronnie Spector
I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it. — Colin Powell
I havent seen a professional player come out of New York in over 20 years since my brother Patrick came out. Blake spent a few years in Harlem, but he moved to Connecticut when he was a kid. — John McEnroe
I want people to take pride in Spanish Harlem. These are people that everyone in the community could relate to... people who mean something special to us. — James De La Vega
My grandfather taught me generosity. He sold snow cones in Harlem. I went with him at 5 and he let me hand out the change and snow cones. I learned a lot in the couple of years that we did that. — Erik Estrada
I got Sonny up to Harlem, and we started street playin' in New York. We did that for three or four years and survived. We brought it back to the streets again. — Brownie McGhee
In Harlem, I got all my black friends. But when I go downtown, I got black, white, Asian, Indian friends. There's no borders, no barriers. — ASAP Rocky
Any kid that feels like they don't have any kind of future, whether they're on a street corner in Harlem or in a little town in Kansas where nothing happens, it's all out there for them. They can do whatever they dream or wish or see on television, or read about in the papers. — James Brolin
I grew up in Harlem. My grandmother was one of the best cooks around, but the first thing she did on Sunday mornings when she started cooking a daylong meal was to take a big block of lard from the back of the refrigerator and throw it into the pan. I know how Hispanics buy their food, and it is not always nutritious. — Richard Carmona
I think probably one of the coolest things was when I went to play basketball at Rucker Park in Harlem. First of all, who would think that Larry the Cable Guy would go to Harlem to play basketball? And I was received like a rock star. It was amazing! There were people everywhere. There were guys walking by yelling, Git r done! — Larry the Cable Guy
Despite everything that Harlem did to our generation, I think it gave something to a few. It gave them a strength that couldn't be obtained anywhere else. — Claude Brown
I don't have to really be in the 60s. Every time I hail a cab in New York, and they pass me by and pick up the white person, then I get a dose of it. Or when they don't want to take you to Harlem. I grew up with that. — Queen Latifah
For me, growing up in Harlem and then migrating down to SoHo and the Lower East Side and chillin' down there and making that my stomping ground... That was a big thing, because I'm from Harlem, and downtown is more artsy and also more open-minded. So I got the best of both worlds. — ASAP Rocky
In Harlem, black was white. You had rights that could not be denied you; you had privileges, protected by law. And you had money. Everybody in Harlem had money. It was a land of plenty. — Rudolph Fisher
I majored in directing. However, I did spend some time at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, so I am somewhat well-versed in African Studies. — Chadwick Boseman
They [the police] learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the station house. — Langston Hughes
It's about stories. If I can tell the story to America, whether it's Riesling or a boxer from Harlem, it will sell. I know on my gravestone it's going to be, 'Storyteller.' — Gary Vaynerchuk
Im grateful for my health, glad Im making people laugh, glad my wife still likes me after a lotta years, grateful my daughter is growing, glad I dont take myself too seriously, glad L.A. has Astro Burger, grateful to be coming home to Harlem soon. Its a gratitude list. It works. — David Alan Basche
Hugs are great, but - better than drugs? Come on. Let me put it to you this way: I never drove to Harlem at 4 a.m. to get somebody to hug me. — Artie Lange
I never think about themes. I let the music create itself. I like it to be a potpourri of all kinds of sounds, all kinds of colors, something for everybody, from the farmer in Ireland to the lady who scrubs toilets in Harlem. — Michael Jackson
The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real; I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books. — Chester Himes
When I was at UCLA, the Harlem Globetrotters offered me a million dollars to come play for them. I turned it down because my education was just as important as playing ball. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
My fellow Wilmington, North Carolina native Meadowlark Lemon is a true national treasure. I watched him play for the Harlem Globetrotters when I was growing up and his skill with the basketball and dedication to the game were an inspiration not only to me, but to kids all around the world. — Michael Jordan
The Negro and all things negroid had become a fad, and Harlem had become a shrine to which feverish pilgrimages were in order . . . Seventh Avenue was the gorge into which Harlem cliff dwellers crowded to promenade. — Wallace Thurman
I began working within the streets of Harlem, where, after graduating from Yale [University, New Haven, CT], I became the artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem [New York, NY]. I wanted to know what that was about. I would actually pull people from off of the streets and ask them to come to my studio. — Kehinde Wiley
If I go up to Harlem or down to Sixth Street, and I'm not dressed up or I'm not wearing my jewelry, then the people feel I'm talking down to them. People expect to see Mrs. Astor, not some dowdy old lady, and I don't intend to disappoint. — Brooke Astor
When I think of the Harlem Renaissance, I think of bright colors, and bold, dynamic art. African American artists of the period were, in large measure, breaking out of the constrictions white society had set for them. They were claiming and remaking their own images, and doing so in bold and striking ways. — Nikki Grimes
I was playing organ at a silent movie house at Harlem and they'd be showing some death scene on the screen. Likely as not, I'd grab a bottle and start swingin' out on 'Squeeze Me' or 'Royal Garden Blues'. The managers complained but, heck, they couldn't stop me! — Fats Waller
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of harlem quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about harlem to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of harlem quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
