I was very, very unhappy with even the so-called very elite schools. The one thing I've always done every day with my children is to watch what they do at school, and I was always a bit unhappy with the academic program. It was a kind of hit and miss.

Education is the thing. This black-white bit - I don't deal with people that way. I deal with it as if you are another individual. If you do something that perturbs me or aggravates me, I do not think you've done it because I'm black.

People have to live by rules in the world. Why do we pretend in school that they don't?

Excellence is not an act, but a habit.

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.

That's how I try to think of education - a school is a miniature society where children learn to function in a real world.

When someone is taught the joy of learning, it becomes a life-long process that never stops, a process that creates a logical individual. That is the challenge and joy of teaching.