When you have big historic changes, there are going to be ups and downs... There are going to be peaks and valleys. Some things are going to go right. Some things are going to go wrong. But as long as the strategic direction is going in the right way, that's really what you have to judge.

We need a common enemy to unite us.

[My favorite dish to cook] is fried chicken, and by the way I'm good at it, too. I make really good fried chicken.

Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential.

Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.

I get letters from kids from all over the country. I always try to answer them because there were people I looked up to in my youth and just wanted to be in contact with. It's also important to realize that you find your role models in a lot of different places. I've never believed that your role models have to look like you. You can find them in all sort of colors, shapes and sizes.

Self esteem comes from achievements. Not from lax standards and false praise.