Julius Lester

He took the box but did not avail himself of a tissue. She understood. Sometimes it was comforting to feel the wetness of grief's tears on your face.

... the object of learning was not to build a better mousetrap but to ask a better question.

Its hardness and solidity had been an odd kind of comfort. Do not wish for anything. Be and endure. The Old African had learned that enduring was power too, and just as he had been drawn to the boulder, so the slaves, after a while, were drawn to him.

Often, the human animal dresses terror in rage, and expresses both in a way unlike either.

History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own.

The young accept the extraordinary as normal because they do not compare their lives with those of others when everyone is like them.

There was an end to weeping. Mourning, however, ebbed and surged but never ceased flowing.

How can I love you if I don't know what hurts you?

Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.