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

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.

Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.

My work is about giving voice to the unheard, and reiterating the voice of the heard in such a way that you question, or re-examine, what is the truth.

I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.

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.

People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.