"Don't worry, we'll beat the lot of them," he told him. "Whites,
 blacks, grays, yellows, we'll beat 'em all. The mud doesn't last
 forever. We'll crawl out of it like other prehistoric beasts. In the
 end we'll have lungs to breathe with and we'll become men; we'll
 become a human species at last."
           -- The roots of heaven, Romain Gary