I worry a great deal about all of those surveys that are out that Americans, in particular, are becoming distrustful of our institutions - that Americans are beginning to say they're either irrelevant or they're corrupt or they certainly don't speak to me. But the institutions are actually still functioning.

In the segregated South, education was almost like armor. It was a way to put yourself in a category where even with the slings and arrows and humiliations of racism and segregation, somehow you had better control of the situation. I always said my parents understood that you might not be able to control your circumstances, but they and their parents believed that you could control your reaction to your circumstances.

I play a lot chamber music.As for something that's hard for me to play, before I leave this Earth I'm hoping to play Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

We still go out and elect people who we think are going to govern and better our interests. So we may not have the same confidence in the people we elect, but we still go out and elect them.

What surprised me was the angst at our democracy. And I understand it - I teach at a university and feel it in my students - but what I've tried to say to people is that we have amazing institutions, but nobody ever said we were perfect. We struggled before and we're struggling now, and we're going to struggle every day. We're a work in progress. That's why the American experience is so important for us to remember, and for us to be a beacon for others to enjoy those same rights.

We [USA] need to deal with our problems here at home if we're going to be strong enough to lead abroad.

Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.