The acceptance of our present condition is the only form of extremism which discredits us before our children. - Lorraine Hansberry

Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be — if there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking — but write to a point. Work hard at it, care about it. Write about our people: tell their story. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts.

Lorraine Hansberry speech, “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” given to Readers Digest/United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, NYC, May 1, 1964.

DEKOVEN Mr. Morris, colonial subjects die mainly from a way of life. The incidentals — gangrene, tumors, stillborn babies — are only that: incidentals. Our work — (He interlocks his fingers) — reinforces the way of life. But when you come with a faith, an ideal of service, it is impossible to believe that. It was, at first, for me. But I saw my first delegations my first year here.

It’s all a matter of ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t accept. It’s not important. I am not going out and be immoral or commit crimes because I don’t believe in God. I don’t even think about it. It’s just that I get tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves through its own stubborn effort. There simply is no blasted God — there is only man and it is he who makes miracles!