Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

People who cling to their illusions find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn anything worth learning: a people under the necessity of creating themselves must examine everything, and soak up learning the way the roots of a tree soak up water.

Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.

There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform

It is astonishing that in a country so devoted to the individual, so many people should be afraid to speak.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.