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 HansberryRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The name Alaiyo symbolizes a deeper existence beyond mere survival and the pursuit of basic needs.
In this quote from Lorraine Hansberry's play, the character Asagai explains the significance of the name Alaiyo, which conveys the idea that true fulfillment in life involves more than just having food or basic necessities. It reflects a longing for a richer, more meaningful existence that transcends material needs and highlights the importance of purpose and aspirations in one's life.
Themes
BreadFulfillmentMeaningExistencePurpose
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during a discussion about the importance of finding one's purpose in life.
More from Lorraine Hansberry
All quotes →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.
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It is difficult for the American mind to adjust to the realization that the Rhetts and the Scarletts were as much monsters as the keepers of Buchenwald-they just dressed more attractively.
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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.
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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.
Lorraine HansberryRead
Daddy felt that this country was hopeless in its treatment of Negroes. So he became a refugee from America. He bought a house in Polanco, a suburb of Mexico City, and we were planning to move there when he died. I was fourteen at the time.
Lorraine HansberryRead
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