Harvard has something that manages, I think, to provide a lot of options for students, but still fairly prescriptive about the kinds of subjects that the courses ought to cover.

Quotable quotes are coins rubbed smooth by circulation.

We have much wisdom to gain by learning to understand other people's cultures and permitting ourselves to accept that there is more than one version of reality.

If time is a staircase, reality is a Slinky. Decades can be parsed. Television, frequently accused of destabilizing life, is actually what stitches the segments together.

Writers are not mere copyists of language; they are polishers, embellishers, perfecters. They spend hours getting the timing right so that what they write sounds completely unrehearsed.

I don't think the same curriculum fits every student body.

One of the oddities about responses that you get to what you write, if you get a fair number of them, is that people have very different ideas of what you said.

One of the good things about the profession of being a professor, is that you also have time to do what interests you and what you care about or what you're good at.

I don't really usually push an agenda, and I don't feel that my main job is to persuade people of something. My main job is to help them think about something.

There are limits, after all, to the idea of limits.

Obviously input is helpful to faculty in trying to come up with a curriculum, but ultimately it's the faculty's job to know what students need to know. Make a decision about it and present it.

You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.

Live in a way that would not leave us regretting after so many years on earth.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

I have to confess I can't have the holiday season without "Hard Candy Christmas". For some reason, it makes me think of the sticky ribbon candy bowl my mid-western grandma always had.

There will never be beings unloved by God, since God is absolute love.

You'll see more violence in any television crime series than you will in my films Art is there to have a stimulating effect, if it earns its name. You have to be honest, that's the only thing.

It was never too late to undo who you had become.

I guess YouTube is the new destination spot for music videos. That's where I go.

I have the wherewithal to challenge myself for my entire life. That's a great gift.

I love New York. It's one of my favorite cities.