“When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate…because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.”

For the trustees to turn away from the entirely reasonable request of the students that a hearing-impaired individual be made president of the college is a very unfortunate expression of insensitivity.

The best antidote to prejudice is reality.

I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

I wouldn’t want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.

Take free speech: most of the tough cases on free speech involve very unpleasant people saying very obnoxious things.

Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.

We all have the right to call each other names. Rudeness is a deeply held constitutional value.

Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.

I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew. I’ve never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.

The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman but to come out.

The Moral Majority supports legislators who oppose abortions but also oppose child nutrition and day care. From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth.

But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects – that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. – some of the previous supporters reconsidered.

They appear to have become so attached to their outrage that they are even more outraged that they won’t be able to be outraged anymore.

If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don’t hold it back for retaliatory purposes.

There was a degree of interventionism in American foreign policy, the notion that we must be the superpower and we have to intervene everywhere, that I think makes no sense.

The public is ready now for a safety net for the middle class, something not just for the poor, but for everyone who will need help, from time to time, in order to own a home, educate their kids, keep themselves healthy or have something to retire on.

Remember, half the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their class.

Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.

Curiosity is the key to creativity.

Don’t work for fools. It’s not worth it.

There’s few things that get you over your own crap more than working hard.

Of course there’s a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don’t take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.

It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

If you were very bright and you became head of a department, as I did, of the psychology department, you were encouraged to go on to graduate work. But as a women you didn’t even think about discrimination.