My mother was pragmatic, focused and extremely, exceedingly practical, and she was the ultimate self-determining person.

I don't want to overemphasize this, but not a day goes by when I don't think about my mother and what she would think about what I just did. I often adjust my approach.

I've had many mentors, but the one that has the most impact was my mother.

My mother was amazing. I guess, in our community, if you wanted to get by you had to work hard. So she cleaned offices. She did everything that you could imagine. We were really poor. But she would say, 'Where you are is not who you are.'

I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. The three things that they focused on were reading, writing, and arithmetic. My goodness, this is a novel idea in this modern society. I was really good at all three of these things. I was particularly good at math.

My mother raised us to think that if we worked hard, and if we put our end of the bargain in, it would work out OK for us.