There were no political ideas. It was an apolitical time. It was the '50s and in the privilege of the suburbs.

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.

Whether or not the working class came to Chicago in 1969 in the Days of Rage is not a measure of their commitment to stopping the war or to seeing life in certain way. There were very few of us who were there, and those of us that were had an illusion about ourselves.

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

Writing a memoir has a particularly excited sense of narcissism.

One of the things that's complicated about writing anything is that it's an act of narcissism, and then of course once it sails out into the world, you have to let go of it.

It's the connection between schools and communities that creates greatness in schools.