Political struggle is the most important thing any of us can do as a citizen in a democracy; and that means the old joining the young to fight for elemental kinds of 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.

I think I am, therefore, I am... I think.

Until God draws you to himself, can you come close to Him.

I create, therefore I am.

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.

So sophisticated and smart, but our eyes tell us lies, or at best the truth in part.

What's near and dear to my heart is cooperative conservation.

Never draw a gun on a man unless you intend to kill him. And believe me, if you do intend to kill him he will already know it. Then he will feel the cold breath of the tomb.

A bachelor lives like a king and dies like a beggar.

Broken glass. It's just like glitter, isn't it?

I think my music is great for film, but I don't have the opportunity, or goesche to go and pitch myself to Hollywood.