“In the 17 years since I graduated from this great College of Law, I have seen that, for many of us, it becomes increasingly easy to rationalize our actions in the name of expediency when facing difficult decisions-to choose a path where the ends justify the means.”

I want to humbly suggest that you be the guardians of a more complicated truth: that the means are as important-and sometimes even more important-than the ends.

Just because you think the path that’s right for you might be lonelier, longer or less destined for traditional success than paths taken by others, don’t be afraid to take it. If you choose your means well you will end up in the right place.

No music can fill the gaping void … at least in my experience only faith. Only faith.

When I left university I got a job with Shell on their graduate scheme.

I should hope I dress differently at 25 than I did when I graduated high school. I hope I never stop changing.

There can be no ‘graduated exercises in drawing’ leading up to an artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the spirit.

We had the wood shop, the machine shop, so I know about all that. I wanted to build buildings when I graduated from high school. I do know my way around that stuff.

When a professor insists computer science is X but not Y, have compassion for his graduate students.

If a student takes the whole series of my folklore courses including the graduate seminars.

Fifty percent of the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their classes.

My parents didn’t make a lot of money. My dad was not a high school graduate.