People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control.

Property rights can improve a woman's ability to stand up to violence in the home. You might think education and employment are important because they give women exit options, but property is as well. Give women equal property rights to inherited land, then they have an asset they can take out of the marriage. This gives husbands strong incentives to not beat them.

When a profession is protected by academic freedom and tenure, it tends to turn inward. To a large extent that's good.

You have to pay so much to see theater, even in Chicago. In the Greek theater, you didn't have to pay anything. You actually had to go, and you just sat there all day.

We are lucky in the United States to have our liberal arts system. In most countries, if you go to university, you have to decide for all English literature or no literature, all philosophy or no philosophy. But we have a system that is one part general education and one part specialization. If your parents say you've got to major in computer science, you can do that. But you can also take general education courses in the humanities, and usually you have to.

There's a gap in perceptions between women and men. Women feel much freer than they did, but still, when alcohol is involved, especially, there's a lot of sexual assault, and a lot of confusion about that. So, we need to focus a lot more on what consent is and on the importance of affirmative consent.