It is no longer enough to simply read and write. Students must also become literate in the understanding of visual images. Our children must learn how to spot a stereotype, isolate a social cliche, and distinguish facts from propaganda, analysis from banter and important news from coverage.

When all is said and done we simply must make teaching in this country an honorable profession-since it's in the classrooms of America where the battle for excellence, ultimately, will be won or lost.

The connectedness of things is what the great university is all about, and I believe the great university in the coming century will be described as a community of scholars.

A poor surgeon hurts one person at a time. A poor teacher hurts 130.

Literature is an inquiry into the deepest yearnings of the human spirit.

To push for excellence today without continuing to push for access for less privileged students is to undermine the crucial but incomplete gains that have been made. Equity and excellence cannot be divided.

Our most consequential human problems will be resolved, not through competition, but collaboration... what we need in education is a learning climate in which students work together. In such an atmosphere, truth emerges as authentic insights are conscientiously exchanged.