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__f there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking__ut 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__ pass it up. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don__ pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts. Lorraine Hansberry speech, __o Be Young, Gifted, and Black,_ given to Readers Digest/United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, NYC, May 1, 1964.

MAMA: You must not dislike people __ause they well off, honey.BENEATHA: Why not? It makes just as much sense as disliking people __ause they are poor, and lots of people do that.

I know he's rich. He knows he's rich, too.

The Murchisons are honest-to-God-real-foe-rich colored people, and the only people in the world who are more snobbish than rich white people are rich colored people. I though everybody knew that.

Cause sometimes it's hard to let the future begin!

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.

Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When he__ done good and made things easy for everybody? That ain__ the time at all. It__ when he__ at his lowest_and he can__ believe in himself because the world__ whipped him so!

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.

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.

Take away the violence and who will hear the men of peace?

Never be afraid to sit a while and think.

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

Seems like God don't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.

Mama, you don__ understand. It__ all a matter of ideas, and God is just one idea I don__ acept. It__ not important. I am not going out and commit crimes or be immoral because I don__ believe in God. I don__ even think about it. It__ 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__ he who makes miracles!

[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]

Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be__f there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking__ut 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__ pass it up. Don__ pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts. Lorraine Hansberry speech, __o Be Young, Gifted, and Black,_ given to Readers Digest/United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, NYC, May 1, 1964.

Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be__f there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking__ut 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__ pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts. Lorraine Hansberry speech, __o Be Young, Gifted, and Black,_ given to Readers Digest/United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, NYC, May 1, 1964.

...I am the first to say that ours is a complex and difficult country and some of our complexities are indeed grotesque. We who are Negro Americans can offer that last remark with unwavering insistence. It is, on the other hand, also a great nation with certain beautiful and indestructible traditions and potentials which can be seized by all of who possess imagination and love of man. There is, as a certain play suggests, a great deal to be fought in America - but, at the same time, there is so much which begs to be but re-affirmed and cherished with sweet defiance.