Libraries are not just places where people go read a book, but places where an immigrant goes to take English lessons and where folks out of a job search for community.

You meet folks who are funny and really smart and persistent and loving that are confronting this thing we call poverty, which is just a shorthand for this way of life that holds you underwater. And you just wonder what our country would be if we allowed these people to flourish and reach their full potential.

I had come to college believing in a story that if you worked hard, the American dream was reachable.

Matthew Desmond Quotes