Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark; professionals built the Titanic. Never, btw, ask that androgynous paper clip anything. S/he is just a stooge for management, leading you down more rabbit holes of options for things called Wizards, Macros, Templates, and Cascading Style Sheets.

I don't think that taste should be the decider of moral issues.

The way universities operate is the decision about what students need for the degree are... is the decision made by the faculty.

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.

I think in general there's no point in going into a field like English literature if you're not going to have fun with it.

For the kind of places I've written for and the kind of writing that I've done, the general way to think about your audience is to think about somebody who's like yourself, but in a completely different discipline.

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.