I'd seen my father. He was a poor man, and I watched him do astonishing things.

I defend myself by improving myself.

So I had to be careful. I recognized the responsibility that, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept whatever the obligation was. That was to behave in a manner, to carry myself in such a professional way, as if there ever is a reflection, it's a positive one.

A good deed here, a good deed there, a good thought here, a good comment there, all added up to my career in one way or another.

Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life. We aren't just what we're taught. It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain. We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?

To be compared to Jackie Robinson is an enormous compliment, but I don't think it's necessarily deserved.

I cannot be understood in three minutes.