Gene Weingarten Quotes

I've been in situations where I was the only black guy. We're in a time now where nobody wants to see that. But it still happens.

I realized I'm a very, very white dancer.

I support charters, but the right kind of charters. I support charters that support kids who have the highest needs. A charter should be targeting students who are in serious trouble. It should serve students who didn't succeed in public schools when it can help them. Or, at least, charters should agree to accept similar proportions of the kids with the highest needs.

I was so shy. Instead of waiting in line with other kids at lunch, I'd go to a corner and buy a pretzel and orange juice. I think I had that for lunch the first three years of high school.

The only advice I have for youth is to date outside your race. I just think it's so cute when I see little kids in interracial relationships; it makes me feel like I'm watching a commercial.

The white Christian heterosexual married male is the epitome of everything right with America!

I think we're at a really rich and fertile time in the zeitgeist about paying attention to diversity of all kinds - racial diversity, gender diversity, making room for a continuum that is more inclusive.

Just like every other kid in my grade school, I was listening to my little radio plug in my ear when Mickey Mantle hit 18 post-season homers and won series after series for the Yankees. I listened and I learned from that. I think he was the original 'Mr. October,' but thank god it didn't stick.

When I was little, I spent a lot of time by myself. When other kids were in school, I was skiing and thinking about things. I was alone on the mountain.

I think charter schools, choice, and frankly school standards need a champion.

Sending our kids in my family to private school was a big, big, big deal. And it was a giant family discussion. But it was a circular conversation, really, because ultimately we don't have a choice. I mean, I pay for a private education and I'm trying to get the one that most matches the public education that I had, but that kind of progressive education no longer exists in the public system. It's unfair.

I did a lot of thinking, and used mental activity to relieve whatever feelings I had. I became very left-brained, and I was good in school. That is, I was a smart kid.

I think that parents only get so offended by television because they rely on it as a babysitter and the sole educator of their kids.

I've seen my kids' work at school, and I think they're better than when I was young, 'cause I was brainwashed into anti-Communism. This is a much more interesting view of history than I've ever seen, and I hope to God it works. It's classic history, classically told. No talking heads. Just pure archival footage and a storyline.

The good news may be that Nature is phasing out the white man, but the bad news is that's who She thinks we all are.

My strategy to show caricature idea of American youth culture, which I think worked after talking about it for so many years, is that I had only a few things. I wanted to buy my own wardrobe for Rock 'N' Roll High School, which of course they said "Yes" to, because their clothing budget was $200, and I ended up spending my whole salary - which I think was about $2,100 - on my clothes. And also, any time I was onscreen, I wanted to have as much energy as I possibly could. I think it just really worked for the character.

I'm proud to be white. I don't have anything against my color. But I don't think color matters, either. Just like I feel it doesn't matter that I'm a white dude doin' black music.

We need more money for schools. We need more money for the kids. Ever think maybe the damn kids aren't worth it?

I think old school TV shows helped in raising your kids and helped in the way things should be done. Now you just see kids disrespecting their parents, you see kids cursing and all kind of things that shouldn't be done.

Wherever schools can be integrated through the busing method, and where it won't be just a, a terrible inconvenience, I think it ought to be done.

If you think about portraying Americans, for example, in a Russian film, it all depends on where the American is from, if they went to school or not, and if they're well-educated or not. Is it an American from Texas, or an American from Brooklyn? Things would change with the vocabulary and the accent.

I was mid-sentence when the casting director said, "Listen, kid. You should not be an actress. You are not pretty enough. You should go back to wherever you came from and you should go to school. You don't have it." She was very blunt - I honestly think that she thought she was doing me a favor.

I think I would always tell school kids that, you know, they'd say, "When did you get interested in politics?" I said, "Just very young." Maybe it was because President [J.F.] Kennedy was the first Irish-Catholic president."

I think the greatest work in social psychology from the 1950s and '60s is enormously important. I wish every high school kid could take a course in social psychology. I think we're making enormous strides in understanding the brain. These aren't yet giving us great insights, but I feel like we're on the verge of it. In five or ten years this basically searching the brain is really going to change things.

The beauty of being black in American society is that black has always been an inclusive definition. White has always been an exclusive definition. I think one of the challenges for white people is to figure out how to have a more inclusive picture of who their families are, of who they are.