“Every object in our lives, however old or new, however apparently humble or simple, holds the stories, thoughts, and courage of thousands of people, some living, most dead – the accumulated “new” of fifty thousand years. Our tools and art are our humanity, our inheritance, and the everlasting legacy of our ancestors. The things we make are the speech of our species: stories of triumph, courage, and creation, of optimism, adaptation, and hope; tales, not of one person here and there but of one people everywhere; written in a common language, not African, American, Asian, or European, but human.”
