Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust

Hannibal: “Me? I am the only kind of slave I could stand to be—a bad one. Every day that come and hour that pass that I got sense to make a half step do for a whole, every day that I can pretend sickness ‘stead of health; to be stupid ‘stead of smart, lazy ‘stead of quick—I aims to do it. And the more pain it give Marster and the more it cost him—the more Hannibal be a man!”

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If the world is engaged in a dispute between survival and destruction...then we, as members of the human race, must address ourselves to that dispute.

Lorraine Hansberry, “The Negro Writer and His Roots: Toward a New Romanticism,” The Black Scholar 12 (March/April 1981): 3

I believe that one of the most sound ideas in dramatic writing is that in order to create something universal, you must pay very great attention to the specific.

Lorraine Hansberry radio interview with Studs Terkel, broadcast on WFMT Radio, Chicago, Illinois, May 12, 1959, “Make New Sounds: Studs Terkel Interviews Lorraine Hansberry.” American Theater (November 1984): 6

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In Her Own Words