The greatest significance of the present student generation is that it is through them that the point of view of the subjugated is finally and inexorably being expressed.

The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.

The past is what makes the present coherent, and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. While there's only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything.

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.

I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.