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

In a wild and diverse democracy each of us should be trying to talk to lots and lots and lots of people outside of our own kind of comfort zone and community, and that injunction goes even further for political leaders. They should talk to everyone, they should listen to everyone, and at the end of the day they should have a mind of their own.

The nice thing about being detained in Canada is it's like being in a Days Inn; it's very clean and very nice.

I found the place where I was beaten bloody forty years earlier and dragged to jail and that made me cry. When the family came out, that made me cry, and the reason I had a hard time leaving Grant Park was that to see a million people like that, feeling the way that million people felt, was so exhilarating.

[The whole first year at university] was a great time for me and great time of awakening.

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

I knew Barack Obama, absolutely. And I knew him probably as well as thousands of other Chicagoans.