Much of what I do now stems from my rage at segregation and discrimination. I can't stand to see children not able to do anything, anybody not able to do what they can do. The daily lessons of exclusion, having hand-me-down books in schools, of seeing ambulances turn away and not give health care for people lying in the streets who are migrant workers. Everything I do today stems from that segregated existence.

So much of America's tragic and costly failure to care for all its children stems from our tendency to distinguish between our own children and other people's children--as if justice were divisible.

Every child’s life is sacred and it is long past time that we protect it.

Children teach us to be courageous and to stand up against injustice.

Let all children come unto me.

Children don't vote but adults who do must stand up and vote for them.

The legacy I want to leave is a child-care system that says that no kid is going to be left alone or left unsafe.

Just because a child's parents are poor or uneducated is no reason to deprive the child of basic human rights to health care, education and proper nutrition.

It is [children] who are God's presence, promise and hope for mankind.