A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.

moral voices can also become sanctimonious bullies.

America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.

When we have a narrative in mind, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it.

My take is that the optimal approach to food, for health and ethical reasons, may be vegetarianism.

The Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine, is in northwestern India near the Pakistani border, and it is a delightful place to contemplate the draw of faith.

The best escalator to opportunity in America is education.

Every heart must have its privatebestseller book.

You can start with nothing and still succeed. However, if you don't start you will never succeed.

Just existing is where a lot of living happens.

... every monarch needs a blow on the head, from time to time.

A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature.

I carried $5000 when I went to Washington. I returned with barely $90 in our pockets.

Those who think their intellect will keep them from deception are already deceived.

Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made on Lincoln.

To be free. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world.

I'm not as self-destructive as Dylan Thomas, but I've certainly been around that behavior enough to have found it a release. The thing that I really enjoyed was being able to play misery.