I'm gonna say that I have followed every presidential campaign since the campaign of President [John F.] Kennedy in 1960.

But you have to have hope. You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward.

The last thing we want is a monolithic viewpoint where six people are standing before a president saying the same thing over and over again.

It is my hope that people today will see that, in another time, in another period, when we saw the need for people to speak up, to organize, to mobilize, and to do something about injustice, we came together.

We live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there's a sense of fear in America today, that if you say the wrong thing, what some people will consider what is wrong, if you step out of line, if you dissent, whether you be an entertainer, that somehow and some way this government or the forces to be will come down on you.

My parents told me in the very beginning as a young child when I raised the question about segregation and racial discrimination, they told me not to get in the way, not to get in trouble, not to make any noise.

I believe that teachers - whether in elementary schools, at the secondary level, or at colleges and universities - every teacher deserves the Nobel Peace Prize just for maintaining order in our schools!