The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

The truth is I would do my job for free! I love it every day. If you can possibly choose a vocation that's an avocation, a job that's really a hobby, then you'll be way ahead of the game.

I want to get into the educational DNA of American culture. I want 10 percent of the common culture, more or less, to be black.

My goal is to get everybody in America to do their family tree.

So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship.

Lincoln would love the fact that Obama is such a great conciliator, trying to transcend ideology.