Perhaps I will be a great man...I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course - Lorraine Hansberry

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that
which must also make you lonely.

"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 being for you is not enough. To live, to breathe — I've got to be against you."

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...