Poetry for me is very easy. It's like a lightning bolt. I feel this calling, and the first line of the poem comes into my head, and I just have to go to the page, to the typewriter, to the computer or whatever and write it.

Never was my political stance determined by the men I was with. I had my own ideas.

I am convinced that the reason why my kids have become very fulfilled and achieving human beings is because I wasn't raising them alone.

It had never crossed my mind that a man could think he had the right to stop me from being who I was.

I want to fix education in the world. As soon as I work on that, I am going to work on world hunger and then world peace.

Sure, if you're a well to do family, you always have the option of sending your children to private schools where teachers spend less time disciplining kids and more time teaching them. However, this option is beyond the reach of most households. And this is what makes school vouchers such a promising solution for lower and middle income families.

Do those serving life sentences deserve access to educational opportunities never having a future beyond bars? The answer is yes and necessitates that in-prison education serves additional goals beyond reducing recidivism.

The goal isn't to be successful; it's to be happy. And so it doesn't matter if I'm doing things in New York or teaching high school or I drop it altogether and sell coffee. The goal is to be happy, and people and relationships are what makes you happy.