Transforming education is not easy but the price of failure is more than we can afford, while the benefits of success are more than we can imagine.

We live in worlds that we have forged and composed. It's much more true than any of the species that you see. I mean, it seems to me that one of the most distinctive features of human intelligence is the capacity to imagine, to project out of our own immediate circumstances and to bring to mind things that aren't present here and now.

Creativity is very much like literacy. We take it for granted that nearly everybody can learn to read and write. If a person can't read or write, you don't assume that this person is incapable of it, just that he or she hasn't learned how to do it. The same is true of creativity.

Everyday, everywhere our children spread their dreams beneath our feet and we should tread softly.

These powers of imagination and creativity are among the few things that set us apart from the rest of life on Earth. But they make all the difference.

My contention is, all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.

If you're fifty, exercise your mind and body regularly, eat well, and have a general zest for life, you're likely younger - in very real, physical terms - than your neighbor who is forty-four, works in a dead-end job, eats chicken wings twice a day, considers thinking too strenuous, and looks at lifting a beer glass as a reasonable daily workout.