Lorraine Hansberry Quotes

There is always something left to love.

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

RICE Why don’t some of you educated chaps talk sense into these murderers? What do they think they are going to accomplish? Murdering people who never did them a moment’s harm — and their own people to boot? We don’t pretend that it’s been all jolly on our side — but this business — what’s the good of it, boy? ’Tisn’t going to solve a bloody thing! And they can’t win, you know. Why don’t the fellows like you do something … talk to them?

I’ll tell you right off, Matoseh, I know you are trying to decide: which kind am I? One of the obtuse ones who is sure to ask you all about rituals and lions? Or one of the top-heavy “little magazine” types who is going to engage a real live African intellectual in a discussion of “negritude” and Senghor’s poetry to show that I am — (He winks; TSHEMBE smiles back the least bit, warming) — really — “in.” Well, I am neither. I am a man who feels like talking.

"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"

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

I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know — and make them whole again. This was truly being God...

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.

TSHEMBE Perhaps my obsessions have made me myopic! In this light, for instance, I really cannot tell you from Major Rice! (Peering close into the other’s face, he grins) You all really do look alike, you know …

MAMA Well, little boys’ hides ain’t as tough as Southside roaches. You better get over there behind the bureau. I seen one marching out of there like Napoleon yesterday.

TSHEMBE You thought! You thought because I am a black man I have answers that are deep and pure. I do not!!

"I suppose that the most heroic expression that I have ever seen was on the face of a certain tough-looking, brutalized, slum-slaughtered woman at Coney Island. She had her arm around a girl child who looked hardly less brutalized and slum-slaughtered - "We is going to have a good time tonight!" the look said."

TSHEMBE (Whirling on him, words flying) And just why should we be able to “talk” so easily? What is this marvelous nonsense with you Americans? For a handshake, a grin, a cigarette and half a glass of whiskey you want three hundred years to disappear — and in five minutes!

Baby, you could be Jesus in drag but if you're brown they're sure you're selling.