I have long since passed that period when I felt personal discomfort at the sight of an ill-dressed or illiterate Negro. Social awareness has taught me where to lay the blame. Lorraine Hansberry More Quotes by Lorraine Hansberry More Quotes From Lorraine Hansberry I think that the glorious thing about the human race is that it does change the world -- constantly. The world or 'life' may seem to more often overwhelm the human being's capacity for struggling against being overwhelmed which is remarkable and exhilarating. Lorraine Hansberry race struggle thinking Everybody talking 'bout heaven ain't going there! Lorraine Hansberry talking heaven When a man knows that the abstraction ten exists - nothing on earth can stop him from looking for the fact of eleven. Lorraine Hansberry curiosity earth men One for whom bread- food- is not enough. Lorraine Hansberry enough bread American straightforwardness is almost as disarming as Americans invariably think it is. Lorraine Hansberry disarming thinking Big Walter used to say, he'd get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, '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.' Lorraine Hansberry eye dream children I think it is about time that equipped women began to take on some of the ethical questions which a male-dominated culture has produced and dissect and analyze them quite to pieces in a serious fashion. It is time that 'half the human race' had something to say about the nature of its existence. Lorraine Hansberry women nature time culture I am a writer. I suppose I think that the highest gift that man has is art, and I am audacious enough to think of myself as an artist - that there is both joy and beauty and illumination and communion between people to be achieved through the dissection of personality. Lorraine Hansberry myself man personality beauty 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. Lorraine Hansberry good beautiful love life You don't have to go to the kings and queens of the earth - I think the Greeks and Elizabethans did this because it was a logical concept - but every human being is in enormous conflict about something, even if it's how to get to work in the morning and all of that. Lorraine Hansberry think you work morning The why of why we are here is an intrigue for adolescents; the how is what must command the living. Lorraine Hansberry here why how living If, by some miracle, women should not ever utter a single protest against their condition, there would still exist among men those who could not endure in peace until her liberation had been achieved. Lorraine Hansberry single women men peace As of today, if I am asked abroad if I am a free citizen of the United States of America, I must only say what is true: No. Lorraine Hansberry true i-am free today I don't want to have anyone else to do my housework. I've always done it myself. I believe you should do it yourself. I feel very strongly about that. Lorraine Hansberry yourself myself you believe The problem in the world is the oppression of man by man; it this which threatens existence. Lorraine Hansberry man oppression problem world Take away the violence and who will hear the men of peace? Lorraine Hansberry will violence men peace Mine is, after all, the generation that had come to maturity drinking in the forebodings of the Silones, Koestlers, and Richard Wrights. It had left us ill-prepared for decisions that had to be made in our own time about Algeria, Birmingham, or the Bay of Pigs. Lorraine Hansberry generation own maturity time I feel that women - without wishing to foster any strict separatist notions, homo or hetero - indeed have a need for their own publications and organizations. Our problems, our experiences as women are profoundly unique as compared to the other half of the human race. Lorraine Hansberry problems feel women unique There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Lorraine Hansberry nothing something you always love Men continue to misinterpret the second-rate status of women as implying a privileged status for themselves; heterosexuals think the same way about homosexuals; gentiles about Jews; whites about blacks; haves about have-nots. Lorraine Hansberry think women men way
