A lot of people have no access to beauty. When I was growing up, my mother had only a few pretty things to look at.

As an actor, you're supposed to take jobs that will challenge you or force fans to see you in a different light. By the '90s, I wasn't really an actor anymore. I was someone who went on the road with these gigantic concerts.

I sometimes think I should go back to school to learn French and music, but who would have me?

I got so far away from what they told you in acting class: Do something different. Producers kept offering me the 'Sister Act' movie, but I said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.' I literally said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.'

We owe every student in every neighborhood in New Jersey an equal opportunity to succeed. We know that more money, alone, is not the answer. We need to redefine success, and how we pursue that success, by the outcomes obtained by students.

Write a story a great writer would write. Because part of becoming an artist is pushing through all the disbelief of those around you, deciding that you are a writer when you have no idea what a plot is or whether what you've written is any good, or anything.

Work appealed to me; school did not. I was a disinterested, bored student.

When someone has the desire to go to school and has the ability but can't get into our schools, that's wrong. Education drives the economy and the quality of life.