Quotes from A Raisin in the Sun

“Beneatha: Love him? There is nothing left to love.

Mama: There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. (Looking at her) 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 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.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!"
"Finish your eggs first.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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"!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“Mama--Mama--I want so many things... I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy...”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“I will go home and much of what I will have to say will seem strange to the people of my village... But I will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly. At times it will seem that nothing changes at all... and then again... the sudden dramatic events which make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred. But I will look about my village at the illiteracy and disease and ignorance and will not wonder long. And perhaps... 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... and perhaps for it I will be butchered in my bed some night by the servants of empire...

...perhaps the things I believe now for my country will be wrong and outmoded, and I will not understand and do terrible things to have things my way or merely to keep my power. Don't you see that there will be young men and women, not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen... to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don't you see they have always been there... that they always will be. And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance? They who might kill me even... actually replenish me!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“DAMN MY EGGS! DAMN ALL THE EGGS THAT EVER WAS!" -Wilson”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“[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]”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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--”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“Something always told me I wasn't no rich white woman.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“How we gets to the place where we scared to talk softness to each other.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When he’s done good and made things easy for everybody? That ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest……and he can’t believe in himself because the world’s whipped him so!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“WALTER (Gathering him up in his arms) You know what, Travis? In seven years you going to be seventeen years old. And things is going to be very different with us in seven years, Travis. … One day when you are seventeen I’ll come home—home from my office downtown somewhere— TRAVIS You don’t work in no office, Daddy. WALTER No—but after tonight. After what your daddy gonna do tonight, there’s going to be offices—a whole lot of offices.… TRAVIS What you gonna do tonight, Daddy? WALTER You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction … a business transaction that’s going to change our lives. … That’s how come one day when you ’bout seventeen years old I’ll come home and I’ll be pretty tired, you know what I mean, after a day of conferences and secretaries getting things wrong the way they do … ’cause an executive’s life is hell, man—(The more he talks the farther away he gets) And I’ll pull the car up on the driveway … just a plain black Chrysler, I think, with white walls—no—black tires. More elegant. Rich people don’t have to be flashy … though I’ll have to get something a little sportier for Ruth—maybe a Cadillac convertible to do her shopping in. … And I’ll come up the steps to the house and the gardener will be clipping away at the hedges and he’ll say, “Good evening, Mr. Younger.” And I’ll say, “Hello, Jefferson, how are you this evening?” And I’ll go inside and Ruth will come downstairs and meet me at the door and we’ll kiss each other and she’ll take my arm and we’ll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of all the great schools in America around you. … All the great schools in the world! And—and I’ll say, all right son—it’s your seventeenth birthday, what is it you’ve decided? … Just tell me where you want to go to school and you’ll go. Just tell me, what it is you want to be—and you’ll be it. … Whatever you want to be—Yessir! (He holds his arms open for TRAVIS) YOU just name it, son … (TRAVIS leaps into them) and I hand you the world!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“Cause sometimes it's hard to let the future begin!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“MAMA: You must not dislike people ’cause they well off, honey.

BENEATHA: Why not? It makes just as much sense as disliking people ’cause they are poor, and lots of people do that.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“You’re a nice-looking girl … all over. That’s all you need, honey, forget the atmosphere.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“GEORGE : Oh, don’t be so proud of yourself, Bennie—just
because you look eccentric.
BENEATHA: How can something that’s natural be eccentric?
GEORGE: That’s what being eccentric means—being
natural. Get dressed.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“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.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

“I know he's rich. He knows he's rich, too.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun

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