I always tell the kids that excellence is like pregnancy. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you're not.

Good teachers are an endangered species because they're giving up because of the tests and everything.

Teach like your hair's on fire!

I have students who are PhDs in music who come back and scored the music and teach the kids the instruments that I don't know how to play. Those are the points of light, the former students.

Kids still like to laugh, kids still like the joy of learning. When you have a cool science experiment, I don't care where you're from. When you have that aha moment, whether you're in China or Kenya, that kid's eyes are gonna open up. So I really try to focus more on what we have in common than what differs us.

I love Shakespeare. In Shakespeare, tragedy is not just something that's bad. It's something that could be good and is bad.

There's a difference between logic and what maybe people see when they're presented evidence and justice and that they're not always together.