“By continuing to increase teacher recruitment and training - and ameliorating wages and working conditions - we will be able to shore up the weaknesses of the French education system.”

“We need everyone to be a feminist. Feminism is the fight for the equality of sexes, not for the domination of one sex over another.”

“Is it written that equality between men and women means one can change sex? Obviously not.”

“We have to reappropriate the concept of laicite (secularism) so we can explain to our young pupils that whatever their faith, they belong to this idea, and they're not excluded. Secularism is not s...”

“Reading changes your perspective and feeds your imagination.”

“Education doesnt make you happy. Nor does freedom. We dont become happy just because were free if we are. Or because weve been educated if we have. But because education may be the means by which...”

“Because I trust in the ever-changing climate of the heart. (At least, today I feel that way.) I think it is necessary to have many experiences for the sake of feeling something; for the sake of bei...”

“The past has no power over the present moment.”

“It is for your own good to love a dare-devil rather than a holy coward. A dare-devil is a unique devil, battling your fears, your pains, conquering your uncertainties, carrying you his arms, and fl...”

“Life is not a battle to win but a melody to sing.”

“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”

“I smelled silt on the wind, turkey, laundry, leaves . . . my God what a world. There is no accounting for one second of it (267).”

“The value is in the worth, not in the number.”

“There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two.”