GEORGE : Oh, don’t be so proud of yourself, Bennie — just because you look eccentric. BENEATHA: How can something that’s natural be eccentric? GEORGE… - Lorraine Hansberry

That's what being eccentric means — being natural.

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

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.

Eventually it comes to you: the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.