Children under five are the poorest age group in America, and one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

We are not going to deal with the violence in our communities, our homes, and our nation, until we learn to deal with the basic ethic of how we resolve our disputes and to place an emphasis on peace in the way we relate to one another.

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

There were these great women in Montgomery, [Rosa Louise] Parks was among them. Jo Ann Robinson [who organized the bus boycott] was among them. It's always these ordinary women and men of grace who have been waiting and seething and planning to change things that are unjust that bring movement.

You really can change the world if you care enough.

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back - but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.