Sparks

   For thousands of years people used to wear woolen clothes and when they took them off at night they saw sparks. I wonder what these people thought thousands of years ago of these sparks they saw when they took off their woolen clothes? I am sure that they ignored them and the children asked them, Mother, what are these sparks? And I am sure the mother said, you imagine them! People must have been afraid to talk about the sparks so they would not be suspected of being sorcerers and witches. Anyhow, they were ignored, and we know now that they were not hallucinations, that they were real, and that what was behind these sparks was the same power that today drives our industry. And I say that we too in each generation see such sparks that we ignore just because they don't fit into our picture of science or knowledge... 

   I think the notion of science- what is scientific and what is not- will change in time. There are many facts that cannot be worked out in a laboratory, and still they are facts. You cannot show in a laboratory that there has every been a Napoleon, you can't prove it as clearly as you can an electric current, but we know there was a Napoleon.

-Isaac Bashevis Singer

It was tough tracking down a standard MLA citation format (the quote is from an interview for a magazine, (Paris Review Issue 44, 1968) published in a collection, so I wasn't sure whether to cite the interview itself, the original magazine, or the new interviews collection,) but I think the following will do:

Singer, Isaac Bashevis, in The Paris Review Interviews, vol II. Ed. Philip Gourevitch. New York: Picador, 2007. 105-106. 

This excerpt from a copyrighted work qualifies for "fair use" under United States Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, under the factors 

1. It is for nonprofit noncommercial educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work is such that it would be difficult to illustrate Mr. Singer's worldview without it;
3. It does not represent a substantial portion of the original work, and
4. it is being quoted in a not-for-profit context with no damage intended.

I hope that's a sufficient coverage of each of the four criteria for fair use. I feel it's best to cover all my bases legally speaking, don't you?