If you're poor, you don't often live near a good school. If it's a competitive public school program, our kids are not prepared to enter those programs.

I've never had my dexterity called into question, but I think if that was ever the case, I could acquit myself by tossing a ball back and forth horizontally between my hands.

I hope in my book [My Beloved World], that the sense that I really feel connected comes through.

I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view.

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.

Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.

A role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, "Yes, someone like me can do this."