“But the most dangerous thing that camp had taught me was the awful lesson of country living: out there, in the open, in the quiet, all the emptiness pressed itself up against you, pawed at the very...”

“I missed my one true friend, my mother. She and I were close in a way I don't think many other mothers and daughters were. I slept beside her every night of my childhood: so near to her back, I cou...”

“What I envy is not their skin but their insouciance. I envy the freedom to sin with only a little bit of consequence, to commit one selfish act and not have it mean the downfall of my entire people...”

“Last period of the day. Charles had decided that morning that he would talk about tessellations. Last period, they should have been covering sines and cosines. They should have been starting to gra...”

“Marie's loud protestations about the lack of black history celebrations in town had resulted in a sheepish and hastily thrown together assembly each year at the public library, where all the while ...”

“Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned...Everything is war. Me say war.That until the're no longer 1st class and...”

“When youre sharing a foxhole with another man, you don't worry about what color he is, just whether or not he will protect your back”

“Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.”

“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.”

“It is easier to write a book with footnotes than the same book written so that children can understand it.”

“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”