I very much dislike the word "race," and I never use it. I use the word "racist." Race is not a fact. There is only one race: human. Skin color is le… - Tillie Olsen

I have a lot of hope from young people, too, with that flame of freedom and light of knowledge, as well as from some of the old people, whom I honor a lot. There's the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who fought in Spain, what's left of them, and there's no bitterness, there's no cynicism. They believe, too, as I do, that it's in human beings not to put up with what is harming and depriving. I am a believer, but the U.S. über alles psychology is very strong now and our bombings from the air. I don't want to die leaving the world as it is right now. You know the old saying, "Whoever degrades another degrades me"? That's Walt Whitman--an American, I'm proud to say.

There was a guy who testified before the Un-American Activities Committee that it was at the house of Jack and Tillie Olsen that everybody was ordered to throw their party books into the fireplace. The only thing he goofed on was that we never had any fireplace, let alone the fact that it never happened. I was president of the PTA. A neighbor called one morning and said, "Do you have your radio on?" I said, "No." And she said, "Well, you'd better put it on. It's about you." I said, "About me?" So I turned it on fast and heard I was "an agent of Stalin who'd been empowered to take over the San Francisco school system."

In that Czarist Russia, Jewish girls were not taught even to read and write. It took (my mother) becoming a revolutionary and joining the Bund, the Jewish Bund, a socialist organization, to learn to read and love books.