Lorraine Hansberry Quotations

Lorraine Hansberry was an American playwright.

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A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs not so much the risk of loneliness as the challenge of exposure to more interesting men — and people in general.
- As quoted in Wild Women Talk Back : Audacious Advice for the Bedroom, Boardroom, and Beyond (2004) by Autumn Stephens, p. 15

I look at you and I see the final triumph of stupidity in the world!
- Beneatha to Walter, Act III

Children see things very well sometimes — and idealists even better.
- Asagai to Beneatha, Act III

Don't get up. Just sit a while and think. Never be afraid to sit a while and think.
- Asagai to Beneatha, Act III

There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he's been through and what it done to him. 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. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so. 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.
- Mama, Act III

To Be Young, Gifted and Black : Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1969)

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.
- p. 100

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.
- p. 137