The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.

You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.

The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the "sanctity" of human life, or the "conscience" of the civilized world.

Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits.

I can't be a pessimist, because I am alive.

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.

The purpose of education...is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.