An education reformer is as important in America as the first lady.

We've lost our competitive spirit. We've become so obsessed with making kids feel good about themselves that we've lost sight of building the skills they need to actually be good at things.

That should be the goal, is that every kid in every neighborhood, despite whatever challenges they may face, are getting a great education in our public schools.

I think that one thing that people are missing is that we are never going to be able to fix this country's [American] economy in the long run until we fix our public education system.

Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don't know how to read, I don't care how creative you are. You're not doing your job.

We are always going to put the best interests of kids above the rights, privileges and priorities of adults.

If you grew up in a lower-income community, or less well-off, the belief is that the way to change that circumstance is through education.

We all have to have more rigorous expectations of our kids in America.

I'd rather deal with anger than apathy.

Poverty is so significant that we can't expect to overcome the impacts of poverty in schools.

You may not do well, necessarily, up front, and in order to be the best, you've got to work hard.

There's an amazing world out there for you to discover, Henry Denton, but you have to be willing to discover yourself first.

She is ugly… end of discussion!

Obama repeatedly has condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization that should be isolated until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone.

To animalise is humane, to humanise is animal.

The hardest part of the show is saying goodbye when it's all done. It really breaks you.

There's no bigger task than protecting the homeland of our country.

We didn't keep track of how many miles we ran back then. We just ran. If you LOVE to run with the kind of passion I have for running, you will understand this. Running was my mode of transportation.

The Beatles just changed everything right across the board. They just had that right combination of clean-cut good looks - a cute band - but under that they had a real rock n roll thing going on.

There's a reason I moved to NYC, and if I listed all the musicians on my list you'd grow weary.