Lorraine Hansberry Quotes

BENEATHA How can something that’s natural be eccentric? GEORGE That’s what being eccentric means — being natural.

Don't get up. Just sit a while and think. Never be afraid to sit a while and think.

The poets have been right in all these centuries, darling; even in its astounding imperfection this earth of ours is magnificent. But oh this human race!

There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.

RICE Please inform the Reverend that if there are no military operations there will be no Mission.

Then isn't this rather all a false funeral? Can't it help you to see that there is something wrong when all the dreams in this house-good or bad-had to depend on something that might never have happened if a man had not died? We always say at home: Accident was at the first and will be at the last a poor tree from which the fruits of life may bloom.

CHARLIE (Incredulous) Matoseh, I don’t believe it — that you can sit here, under this very roof where you learned to read and write — and deny the dedication of those who came here — TSHEMBE (Utter dismissal) I do not deny it. It is simply that the conscience, such as it is, of imperialism is … irrelevant.

And don’t call them terrorists: that’s for the settlers. Call them rebels, or revolutionaries. (Looking off with his own sad irony) Or fools. But never terrorists.

What you ain't never understood is that I ain't got nothing, don't own nothing, ain't never really wanted nothing that wasn't for you. There ain't nothing as precious to me...There ain't nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else —

TSHEMBE It may be, Mr. Morris, that I have developed counterassumptions because I have had — (Mimicking lightly but cruelly) — too many long, lo-o-ong “talks” wherein the white intellectual begins by suggesting not only fellowship but the universal damnation of imperialism. But that, you see, is always only the beginning. Then the real game is begun.

Of love and my parents, there is little to be written; their relationship to their children was utilitarian. We were fed and housed and dressed and outfitted with more cash than our associates and that was all. We were also vaguely taught certain vague absolutes: that we were better than no one but infinitely superior to everyone...

I wanted to be able to come here and speak with you on this occasion because you are young, gifted, and black…I, for one, can think of no more dynamic combination that a person might be. . . And that is why I say to you that, though it be a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic — to be young, gifted, and black.

"Don't you understand man? The slogans of capitulation can KILL! Every time we say "Live and let live" — death triumphs! Too much has happened, too much has happened to me. . . . That which warped and distorted all of us is — all around: it is in this very air! This swirling, seething, madness that you ask us all to help maintain! It's no good, Wally — your world. It's no — damn — good! You have forced me to take a position. Finally — the one thing I never wanted to do. Just not being for you is not enough. To live, to breathe — I've got to be against you"

...I am the first to say that ours is a complex and difficult country and some of our complexities are indeed grotesque. We who are Negro Americans can offer that last remark with unwavering insistence. It is, on the other hand, also a great nation with certain beautiful and indestructible traditions and potentials which can be seized by all of who possess imagination and love of man. There is, as a certain play suggests, a great deal to be fought in America - but, at the same time, there is so much which begs to be but re-affirmed and cherished with sweet defiance.

I think it’s very simple that the whole idea of debating whether or not Negroes should defend themselves is an insult.