I'd like to transform the system in very fundamental ways, but you've got to do that in every way that you can. You can't wait for some magic bullet or some magic politician or some magic anything to have that happen. You got to get out there and use your vote.

It never occurred to me that I was not going to challenge segregation.

The question is not whether we can afford to invest in every child; it is whether we can afford not to.

Ordinary women of grace are, in a sense, my real role models.

The crisis of children having children has been eclipsed by the greater crisis of children killing children.

Education is a precondition to survival in America today.

You didn't have a choice about the parents you inherited, but you do have a choice about the kind of parent you will be.