Lynn Nottage Quotes

Sometimes I think we forget that we're meant to pick up and go when the well runs dry [...] You stay put for too long, you get weighed down by things, things you don't need. It's true. Then your life becomes this pathetic accumulation of stuff. Emotional and physical junk.

The universe, the landscape, it is all changing. It has not changed enough-that is a given- but it is changing, and evolution is something to embrace. Racism is alive and well and we still encounter microaggressions on a regular basis, bat at least now we can go home and close the door and enjoy some entertainment, see ourselves on-screen, imagine ourselves as superheroes and goddesses. Before, you got hassled, you went home, and you had nothing. That's the difference

MAMA: My mother taught me that you can follow behind everyone and walk in the dust, or you can walk ahead through the unbroken thorny brush. You may get blood on your ankles, but you arrive first and not covered in the residue of others. This land is fertile and blessed in many regards, and the men ain’t the only one’s entitled to its bounty.

Mama: You men kill me. You come in here, drink your beer, take your pleasure, and then wanna judge the way I run my “business.” The front door swings both ways. I don’t force anyone’s hand. My girls, Emilene, Mazima, Josephine, ask them, they’d rather be here, than back out there in their villages where they are taken with- out regard. They’re safer with me than in their own homes, because this country is picked clean, while men, poets like you, drink beer, eat nuts and look for some place to disappear. And I am without mercy, is that what you’re saying? Because I give them something other than a beggar’s cup. (With ferocity) I didn’t come here as Mama Nadi, I found her the same way miners find their wealth in the muck. I stumbled off of that road without two twigs to start a fire. I turned a basket of sweets and soggy biscuits into a business. I don’t give a damn what any of you think. This is my place, Mama Nadi’s.

Most folks think it's the guilt or rage that destroys us in the end, but I know from experience that it's shame that eats us away until we disappear.