We may not be able to stop evil in the world, but how we treat one another is entirely up to us.

At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better

I have always had extraordinarily good relations with very conservative colleagues. And that's not because I agree with any of them or fudge on my positions, but people feel I listen to them and give them the benefit of the doubt. I assume the best of people. And that, I think, is an attitude that is maybe rare in politics.

But shouldn't we also quit marketing murder as a game?

It's not a nice-to-have - it's a must-have. It's time we stop treating child care as a side issue, or a women's issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that it is for all of us.

The most important thing we can do is to make sure that we've got very high standards, we expect a lot out of all of our young people, and we make sure that we have the best teachers possible in every classroom.

Community colleges play an important role in helping people transition between careers by providing the retooling they need to take on a new career.