Quotes from James Heckman

We can change who we are. We can improve ourselves in various ways, and we can give ourselves possibilities.

The traditional story of economists has been to say education explains what the returns are to school. I say, 'Okay, that's fine, but what explains the education? How much is just a matter of my giving you a poor kid versus a rich kid?'

It is imperative to change the way we look at education. We should invest in the foundation of school readiness from birth to age 5.