180 Quotes by Jonathan Kozol

I once made a check of all books in my fourth-grade classroom. Of the slightly more than six hundred books, almost one quarter had been published prior to the bombing of Hiroshima; 60 percent were either ten years old or older.

It is a commonplace by now to say that the urban school systems of America contain a higher percentage of Negro children each year.

Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available.

You need massive recruitment to tell the poorest of the poor what is possible.

I believe that the wilderness is where God is found.

Charity isn’t a good substitute for justice.

I do get scared about the physical danger from drug dealers. But it’s not in the same league as the danger I feel eating an $80 lunch with my privileged friends to discuss hunger and poverty. That’s when my soul feels imperiled.

I beg people not to accept the seasonal ritual of well-timed charity on Christmas Eve. It’s blasphemy.

I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Don’t use the gibberish of the standards writers.