In 1975 I was among a group of blacks who formed the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee.

Children are amazing, and while I go to places like Princeton and Harvard and Yale, and of course I teach at Columbia, NYU, and that's nice and I love students, but the most fun of all are the real little ones, the young ones.

. . .little has changed in our New York neighborhoods except the faces, the names, and the languages spoken. The same decent values of hard work and accomplishment and service to city and nation still exist.

You can be anything you want to be. You can be a street sweeper, if you want. Just be the best blasted street sweeper you can be . . . And, you know you can be mayor.

I went downtown as a lawyer and then I worked in a liquor store at night, as I had done all through law school. And so when I got to the point where I could give up the night job, I joined the political club.

You can't twist Al Sharpton's arm.

I love kids and I maintain that they are our future, that we adults owe them the ability to achieve their potential and that we don't own this planet. We hold it in trust for them.