Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was an African-American playwright and writer.
I wish to live beacause 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.
Ah, I like the look of packing crates! A household in preparation for a journey!. . . Something full of the flow of life, do you understand? Movement, progress. . .
I was born black and female.
Children see things very well sometimes and idealists even better.
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--
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.
Obviously the most oppressed of any oppressed group will be its women
Once upon a time freedom used to be life-now it's money. I guess the world really do change.
American straightforwardness is almost as disarming as Americans invariably think it is.
Mama - Mama - I want so many things. . . I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy.
One for whom bread- food- is not enough.
I look at you and I see the final triumph of stupidity in the world!
Everybody talking 'bout heaven ain't going there!
The grim possibility is that she who 'hides her brains' will, more than likely, end up with a mate who is only equal to a woman with 'hidden brains' or none at all.
I believe that one of the most sound ideas in dramatic writing is that in order to create the universal, you must pay very great attention to the specific. Universality, I think, emerges from truthful identity of what is.
I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!" "Finish your eggs first.
Ball points belong to their age. They make everyone write alike.
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. '