Let's stop teaching to the middle and start teaching to the student.

When kids know that you refuse to let them fail ... they don't give up as easy. So sometimes they don't have it inside, [but] they're like,'You know, I don't want to do this, but I know my mother's going to be mad.'That matters to kids, and it helps get them through.

Why is it that when we had rotary phones, when we were having folks being crippled by polio, that we were teaching the same way then that we're doing right now?

If you raise a child, there's no time, you can't be a great parent.

Osama Bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America. Our education system is doing that just fine.

Movies portray men as tough guys.

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility'.