Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential.

Arnold Rampersad is a really good person. A really good person. As a matter of fact, he came to Stanford when I was Provost.

You will make a difference in the world, but not immediately. Your first obligation is to find something you like doing, because if you like doing it, you'll do it well.

We need to move beyond the idea that girls can be leaders and create the expectation that they should be leaders.

There is nothing better than being in a classroom with really, really brilliant students, and opening up new worlds to them. That's what I love doing.

I've always said as a political scientist that "culture" is what we use when we can't explain things. I think it's more about accessibility. Part of the problem is that this is an expensive game [golf]. I know in a couple of places where there are black members, and they come from pretty much the same socioeconomic level that the white members come from.

Everybody in the world is capable of democratic development. Some people in the world are unlucky enough to get stuck with really bad political leadership and with really bad political institutions.