"Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time."

"To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teen-agers, I say, just be patient: even though it looks like you can't do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20."

"So much of the deep lingering sadness over President Kennedy's assassination is about the unfinished promise: unspoken speeches, unfulfilled hopes, the wondering about what might have been."

"It was very clear to me in 1965, in Mississippi, that, as a lawyer, I could get people into schools, desegregate the schools, but if they were kicked off the plantations - and if they didn't have food, didn't have jobs, didn't have health care, didn't have the means to exercise those civil rights, we were not going to have success."

"Well, I always looked at Mulan as a movie about a lesbian coming out."

"I only have 'yes' men around me. Who needs 'no' men?"

"When schools flourish, all flourishes."

"I was never very interested in boys - and there were plenty of them - vying with one another to see how many famous women they would get into the hay."