I worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents.

Children must have at least one person who believes in them. It could be a counselor, a teacher, a preacher, a friend. It could be you. You never know when a little love, a little support will plant a small seed of hope.

You can't tell parents to teach children the value of work when we don't have jobs and the jobs we have don't pay a decent wage. You can't tell children to achieve and then let them go to broken-down schools with teachers who don't care. We need a consistency of values in our public, corporate, and private lives.

I don't care what my children choose to do professionally, just as long as within their choices they understand they've got to give something back.

The legacy I want to leave is a child-care system that says that no kid is going to be left alone or left unsafe.

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.

In trying to make a big difference, don't ignore the small daily differences we can make.