Most people didn't pursue their passions simply because of the promise of a paycheck. They pursued them because they couldn't imagine doing anything else with their lives.

Our task is to educate their (our students) whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it.

The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it's to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they're valued.

The real role of leadership in education ... is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility.

The dropout crisis is just the tip of an iceberg. What it doesn't count are all the kids who are in school but being disengaged from it, who don't enjoy it, who don't get any real benefit from it.

Up to a point you welcome being interrupted because it is only by interacting with other people that you get anything interesting done.

Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.

What you do for yourself dies with you when you leave this world, what you do for others lives on forever.

Teaching is a creative profession, not a delivery system. Great teachers do [pass on information], but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage.

The first task in teaching for creativity in any field is to encourage people to believe in their creative potential and to nurture the confidence to try.

Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves.

Think about what you are thinking about. Be aware of your own thoughts!

To love one that is great is almost to be great one's self.

I've only myself to blame. It would be easy for me to blame others but I have to look at myself.

Nobody cares about your products (except you)

Despite our best efforts and our highest hopes, America's long struggle with race is far from finished.

Perfection is often the enemy of greatness.

No matter how confident you are in your own abilities, you can't build and run a business alone. You need your army pulling you ahead, rather than holding you back.

I don't think the function of writing, at least for me as a fiction writer, is to say to people, "Here's the answer." It's not an op-ed.

Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.

People think of these eureka moments and my feeling is that they tend to be little things, a little realisation and then a little realisation built on that.