Quotes from Lorraine Hansberry

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.

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

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

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.

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

I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!" "Finish your eggs first.

Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning-because that ain't the time at all...when you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.

I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and — I wish to live. Moreover, because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations and generations.

It's dangerous, son." "What's dangerous?" "When a man goes outside his house to look for peace.

It isn't a circle--it is simply a long line--as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end--we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd by those who see the changes--who dream, who will not give up--are called idealists...and those who see only the circle we call them the "realists"!

Mama--Mama--I want so many things... I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy...

Beneatha: You didn't tell us what Alaiyo means... for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something... ... Asagai: It means... it means One for Whom Bread--Food--Is Not Enough.

That's what being eccentric means--being natural.

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

I'm just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything?... I'm not going to be immoral or commit crimes because I don't believe. I don't even think about that. I just get so tired of Him getting the credit for things the human race achieves through its own effort. Now, there simply is no God. There's only man. And it's he who makes miracles.

Seem like God didn't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams -but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.

Something always told me I wasn't no rich white woman.

How we gets to the place where we scared to talk softness to each other.

Beneatha Younger:]... He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each other with good Chrisitan fellowship. [excerpt from Act II, Scene 3]

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

I am] A fool who believes that death is waste and love is sweet and that the earth turns and men change every day and that rivers run and that people wanna be better than they are and that flowers smell good and that I hurt terribly today, and that hurt is desperation and desperation is—energy and energy can move things...

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--

MAMA (Quietly, woman to woman) He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he? Kind of like a rainbow after the rain… RUTH (Biting her lip, lest her own pride explode in front of Mama) Yes, Lena.

For above all, in behalf of an ailing world which sorely needs our defiance, may we, as Negroes or women, never accept the notion of - "our place.