Charity isn't a good substitute for justice.

Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance.

The greatest difference between now and 1964, when I began teaching, is that public policy has pretty much eradicated the dream of Martin Luther King.

You need massive recruitment to tell the poorest of the poor what is possible.

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.

Separate and unequal didn't work 100 years ago. It will not work today.

The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we call - in enemy nations - 'state indoctrination.'

False hope is worse than despair.

The cause of homelessness is lack of housing.

Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States.

The ones I pity are the ones who never stick out their neck for something they believe, never know the taste of moral struggle, and never have the thrill of victory.

The main reason of fear of failure lies in people’s being unaware of the impact of misfortune on achieving success

The day of birth is day of life.

Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who've been through something traumatic.

Atheists have always argued that this world is all that we have, and that our duty is to one another to make the very most and best of it.

You totally need to watch the news." "Can't." "Why?" "It's too depressing." "Right, because hanging with dead people isn't.

There is no faith like the faith of a builder of homes in coastal Louisiana

Have you ever once in your life reached out to touch infinity?

I attempt from love's sickness to fly.

The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.