But the myth of violent solutions as the ultimate solutions maintains itself in much of popular media.

The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about.

Our democratic richness arrives when we're able to comprehend our collective humanity accurately.

When you're artistic director of a program, you present the music you want to present.

Big business, for all its lobbying, is often put in line by investigative reporting, public scandals and multi-million-dollar judgments in court against those who put products on the market that are dangerous to their buyers.

What we need in America is a renaissance. We need to go forward by going backward.

Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.