I mean, I think a healthy country is a country where people are healthy physically, and a smart country is a country where people are educated.

When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.

I mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.

Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance.

I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.

Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.

You know if we were to look back and how we were in 1955 living in Jim Crow, living in segregation, living in segregated schools, it's hard to believe that it was America, but it really was.