“We will fiercely challenge those forces within the education establishment who impede innovation in our schools and who protect and defend inequality and institutional failure.”

“The government sets targets for increased four-year high school graduation rates as part of its agenda for improving Americans' health.”

“My second-grade teacher went around the class and asked everybody what they were going to be when they grew up. I said, 'I want to travel the world,' and he said, 'You'll be married and pregnant by...”

“It's the way tenure works, together with dismissal protections that tenured teachers have, that no other public employee has, which makes it almost impossible to remove a grossly ineffective and in...”

“Some women are smarter than men, and some aren't. But to suggest to women that they deserve dominance instead of equality is at best a cheap applause line.”

“'Morning Joe' host Mika Brzezinski's personal life is a minefield. Her father is Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and while one brother is an Obama a...”

“Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and...”

“I like the way Quentin Tarantino creates a scene using a series of close-ups or showing very cool images of a person or people walking on some ordinary street in slow motion. I wish I could achieve...”

“When a sports movie really works, it gets you on all levels, because the stakes are high. It's black and white. It's win or lose.”

“Pain is not the same as suffering. Left to itself, the body discharges pain spontaneously, letting go of it the moment that the underlying cause is healed. Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It ...”

“In pleasant peace and security How suddenly the soul in a man begins to die He shall look up above the stalled oxen Envying the cruel falcon, And dig under the straw for a stone To bruise himself on.”

“It is amazing, though, what pains your subconscious will undergo in achieve sustainable peace.”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”