I'm a New Yorker, and I jaywalk with the best of them.

The challenges I have faced - among them material poverty, chronic illness, and being raised by a single mother - are not uncommon, but neither have they kept me from uncommon achievements.

If I write a book where all I've ever experienced is success, people won't take a positive lesson from it. In being candid, I have to own up to my own failures, both in my marriage and in my work environment.

Don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing.

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.

In the wider context, what I believe I was - the point I was making was that our life experiences do permit us to see some facts and understand them more easily than others.

You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action.