The Gates Foundation has learned that two questions can predict how much kids learn: 'Does your teacher use class time well?' and, 'When you're confused, does your teacher help you get straightened out?'

Pictorial is something that I am not used to. You have to pose, smile, bend your arm, straighten up, look to the left.

It's rare that I'm able to get to my desk in the morning without stopping halfway there, turning around, and going in the opposite direction because of a pressing need to straighten all the pictures on the walls, floss my teeth a second time, and make certain that there really are 100 postage stamps in the roll of stamps I bought yesterday.

I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It's just funny.

Some days it is a heroic act just to refuse the paralysis of fear and straighten up and step into another day.

Prince was outside his dressing room, shaking one of those little Easter egg maracas. His hair was straightened to a soft wave; his eyelashes were unfairly lovely. He smelled like the most expensive shelf in the Sephora perfume aisle. This man wearing eyeliner, heels and ladies' perfume somehow managed to be more masculine than the burly bodyguard.

For many years, even as users became more sophisticated, personal computers took too much effort to use without problem-solving, keeping alive the yearning for greater simplicity. Microsoft's dominant Windows platform, in particular, was a home for all manner of bugs and problems that required IT people to straighten out.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

There definitely will be flying cars, but whether there'll be flying cars for most people to use, it'll probably take a long time to straighten everything out, all the rules and hassles. It'll take a while to figure out how to keep people from crashing into each other.

He who knows he is a fool is not the biggest fool; he who knows he is confused is not in the worst confusion. The man in the worst confusion will end his life without ever getting straightened out; the biggest fool will end his life without ever seeing the light. If three men are traveling along and one is confused, they will still get where they are going - because confusion is in the minority. But if two of them are confused, then they can walk until they are exhausted and never get anywhere - because confusion is in the majority.

Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?

When you're a houseguest and you leave it's nice to straighten something up or send your hosts a useful gift. And when you leave the planet it's nice to have made a positive contribution.

I wish they'd had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would've been straightened out.

I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It's just funny.

Some days it is a heroic act just to refuse the paralysis of fear and straighten up and step into another day.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.