I don't really use the Internet or the newspapers to find out about people.
I beg people not to accept the seasonal ritual of well-timed charity on Christmas Eve. It's blasphemy.
I emphasize teachers because they are largely left out of the debate. None of the bombastic reports that come from Washington and think tanks telling us what needs to be 'fixed' - I hate such a mechanistic word, as if our schools were automobile engines - ever asks the opinions of teachers.
I always want to tell these young idealists that the world is not as dangerous as many in the older generation want them to believe. . . The [people] for whom I feel the greatest sadness are the ones who choke on their beliefs, who never act on their ideals, who never know the state of struggle in a decent cause, and never know the thrill of even partial victories.
I have been criticized throughout the course of my career for placing too much faith in the reliability of children's narratives; but I have almost always found that children are a great deal more reliable in telling us what actually goes on in public school than many of the adult experts who develop policies that shape their destinies.
Good teachers don't approach a child of this age with overzealousness or with destructive conscientiousness. They're not drill-masters in the military or floor managers in a production system. They are specialists in opening small packages. They give the string a tug but do it carefully. They don't yet know what's in the box. They don't know if it's breakable.
Separate and unequal didn't work 100 years ago. It will not work today.
Like a prisoner awaiting his release, like a schoolboy when the end of term is near, like a migrant bird ready to fly south. . . I long to be gone.
Here was a place where men and life and death had reached the lowest form of degradation. How could any reward in national progress even faintly justify the establishment and operation of such a place?
I have already released my financials, which are massive, and, by the way, which showed a tremendous company. It's over $10 billion in net worth that I have built with a very, very small starter loan years ago.
Music's not like becoming a doctor, who can walk into a community and find people who need him.