“THE GREAT HUMANITYThe great humanity is the deck-passenger on the ship third class on the train on foot on the causeway the great humanity.The great humanity goes to work at eight marries at twenty dies at forty the great humanity.Bread is enough for all except the great humanity rice the same sugar the same cloth the same books the same are enough for all except the great humanity.The great humanity has no shade on his soil no lamp on his road no glass on his windowbut the great humanity has hope you can't live without hope.”

“MY WOMAN My woman came with me as far as Brest,she got off the train and stayed on the platform,she grew smaller and smaller,she became a kernel of wheat in the infinite blue,then all I could see were the tracks. Then she called out from Poland, but I couldn't answer,I couldn't ask, "Where are you, my rose, where are you?""Come," she said, but I couldn't reach her,the train was going like it would never stop,I was choking with grief. Then patches of snow were rotting on sandy earth,and suddenly I knew my woman was watching :"Did you forget me," she asked, "did you forget me?"Spring marched with muddy bare feet on the sky. Then stars lighted on the telegraph wires,darkness dashed the train like rain,my woman stood under the telegraph poles,her heart pounding as if she were in my arms,the poles kept disappearing, she didn't move,the train was going like it would never stop,I was choking with grief. Then suddenly I knew I'd been on that train for years- I'm still amazed at how or why I knew it -and always singing the same great song of hope,I'm forever leaving the cities and women I love,and carrying my losses like wounds opening inside me,I'm getting closer, closer to somewhere.”

“Everything great that has ever happened to humanity has begun as a single thought in someone's mind, and if anyone of us is capable of such a thought, then all of us has the same capacity, capability, because we're all the same.”

“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.”

“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.”

“Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostagic and hopeful all at the same time.”

“Human history is full of great men, great women, individuals, with the will for power - all of them with governesses like her.”