"I think there has to be some experience first on which to base the opinion you can't just ask somebody before you start "what do you want to do? - They don't know."

"So I think that is, if you get there, if you get to the point where kids are reading because they want to, not because they're made to, if they have curiosity not because they're made to look into things but because they want to, the battles won."

"I think it's really clear that there's a disconnect between what we do in school and what the kids experience in life, and if they're going to take us seriously we have to make it more real for them and it has to have some application outside our doors."

"Our society is heavily based on reading, writing and arithmetic, and if you don’t fit into that kind of box, then you have a hard time feeling confident that you can. So, it’s important to start from the base, and that’s about confident, self-esteem, and self-empowerment."

"Because we all have this idea in our heads, this concept of what youth empowerment is, and yes, we do have program objectives, and we sit down and hash them at meetings, and we plan out what this is, what’s it going to look like, and we have our own ideals and everything. But it never actually shapes up that way when you’re working with human beings, and youth are very self-directed, motivated people."