I don't see a future where we're all taught by robots. The real life, physical experience of being in a classroom and having conversations with knowledgeable people is immeasurably valuable and irreplaceable.

But there are a thousand ways to look at it: maybe the strings break, or maybe our ship s sink, or maybe we're grass--our roots so interdependent that no one is dead as long as someone is still alive. We don't suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters.

But pizza was originally Italian, although, Italian pizza doesn't taste much like this because this pizza is fortified with sodium. Which is a mineral...or a vitamin. All I know is that it's good for you.

In the end the listening exposes you even more than it exposes the people you're trying to listen to.

Truth resists simplicity.

I hate the rich snots here with a fervent passion I usually reserve only for dental work and my father.

I'm a big believer in pairing classics with contemporary literature, so students have the opportunity to see that literature is not a cold, dead thing that happened once but instead a vibrant mode of storytelling that's been with us a long time - and will be with us, I hope, for a long time to come.