Charles Dickens. Jane Austen. And then, when I finally learned to read her, Virginia Woolf. Shoot for the top, always. You know you’ll never make it, but what’s the fun if you don’t shoot for the top?

Well absolutely Sondheim was an influence, because he was in many ways this door into the world of theater and he is a phenomenal composer. He’s also a phenomenal mentor.

My university tutor Raymond Williams.

The last teacher I had was a man named O’Halloran. But he was the only one who offered words of encouragement, who told us we were distinct, unique individuals with a right to think for ourselves. And that was just before we left Leamy’s National School. And he told me, “My boy, you are a literary genius.” And you can imagine what I had to put up with at the schoolyard with all the others. “Hey, McCourt, you’re a literary genius. Look at him. Look at the literary genius.

I mean—I am biased—but my wife, Glennon Doyle. She teaches me every day. She teaches me about my own internalized sexism.

For power to stay in power, the powerful have to impose some level of fear over the people that they are in power over. If you have power, you make decisions and if you make decisions you can probably keep power.

the job of the parent is to make them believe that they can handle life on their own without us.

I look back on many parts of my career and none rises to the top of the pride avenue for me more than the way that I responded to the benching in the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

Forget me." Because if I am forgotten, then I know that the game has grown and the game is better. If I am forgotten, then somebody else has taken my place. And that is the natural order of the world.

I’m sober three years now so these children have never seen me inebriated or intoxicated in any way. I think that might be one of the things that I’m most proud of in terms of the way that I’m modeling for our kids what adulthood can look like.