If your child marches to a different beat, a different drummer, you might just have to go along with that music. Help them achieve what’s important to them.

There had been questions raised about whether we could ever really unite to work together on an issue, whether we could do it with equal passion and fervor. And it happened during my nomination and I think I forever will be grateful for that love, for that support and for proving those naysayers wrong.

I visit the island [Puerto Rico] as often as I humanly can. And I visit with community as frequently as possible, given the demands on me. I meet with kids. I meet with adults. I try to spend time and to listen to people talk about their lives.

The best I could say about third grade was that it was a more or less continuous state of dread.

One of the other reasons for writing this book [My Beloved World] was to hold on to the person you first met. More of the world knows about me now and follows me in a way that never happened before. I didn't want me, the inside of me, to change. Because I liked Sonia, the Sonia who has been. So another reason for writing the book was to hold on to that - whatever the best in Sonia was, to try to capture it.

I honestly felt no envy or resentment, only astonishment at how much of a world there was out there and how much of it others already knew. The agenda for self-cultivation that had been set for my classmates by their teachers and parents was something I'd have to develop for myself.

Some people choose not to engage the battle and then don't seek out that kind of success. And others do.