What was on the agenda was school and social life and those kinds of things. So I was the middle of five kids. So I had the great advantage of being able to play up to the older kids and play down to the younger kids and I think that's part of what propelled me to become a teacher at some point in my life. But it was a comfortable childhood. It was a privileged childhood.

When someone who's always been in your life is gone, it's a stunning adjustment of your own identity.

You can be disappointed but only if you thought [Barack Obama] was something that he said he wasn't!

It's the height of the Cold War, but I grew up in apolitical family and politics wasn't on the agenda.

Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at.

The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam.

Everyone who knew [Barack] Obama from being in Hyde Park knew he was the smartest guy in any room he walked into; a decent, compassionate, lovely person; pragmatic, middle-of-the-road and ambitious.