Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

Keep hope alive!

For me, Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together. That is the new challenge of the new world... learning to co-exist and not co-annihilate.

A man who cannot be enticed by money or intimidated by the threat of jail or death has two of the strongest weapons that anyone has to offer.

Music of all arts should be expansive and inclusive.

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.