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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the belief that writing is a profound artistic gift that fosters joy and connection among people.
Lorraine Hansberry emphasizes the significance of art, especially writing, as a vital medium for self-expression and human connection. She considers the act of dissection of personality not just a technical process but a journey that leads to joy, beauty, and deeper understanding among individuals, portraying artists as catalyzers of illumination in interpersonal relationships.
Themes
WritingArtJoyBeautyPersonalityIlluminationCommunity
In practice
Example use cases
During a literary festival, you might quote this to inspire budding writers about the importance of their craft.
More from Lorraine Hansberry
All quotes βI 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 HansberryRead
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.
Lorraine HansberryRead
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
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 HansberryRead
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