I need to work outside government, on my own.

We're spending, on average, three times more for prison than for public-school pupils. That's the dumbest investment policy. It doesn't make us safer.

I try to act out of faith.

Far less wealthy industrialized countries have committed to end child poverty, while the United States is sliding backwards. We can do better. We must demand that our leaders do better.

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.

Just because a child's parents are poor or uneducated is no reason to deprive the child of basic human rights to health care, education and proper nutrition.

I'm tough in the sense that I believe as strongly in what I'm doing as anybody else believes in what they are doing.