Politicians are at a great distance from the academic world. Barack Obama was my colleague at Chicago - but could i ever talk to him now? Never.
At first I imagined I'd write detective novels, because I loved 'Nancy Drew.'
What all emotions have in common, and what distinguishes them from bodily appetites, is a focus on an object and a view of that object as salient for one's life.
I find so often, you know, just on a very mundane level; you've got a meeting and your child's acting in a school play. You can't do both things. And it's not simply that you can't do both, but whatever you do, you're going to be neglecting something that's really important.
I really disliked Philadelphia society - really, deeply disliked it. I spent a lot of my teenage years writing poetry attacking it.
I think Americans did learn that you just are not going to be able to live well if you subordinate people on the grounds of their religion.
Mob rule is always extremely dangerous for the future of democracy.
I think a lot of people get hope through civic organizations and through their churches.
There is no reason why an American scholar cannot by himself or herself develop an adequate understanding of another culture. And I don't find any reason to suppose that the birth within a culture automatically confers understanding.
In my experience and observation, senior appointments are rarely based entirely on merit.
All of us, whether we are ignorant of philosophy or professors of philosophy, find it easier to follow dogma than to think.
We are not just bundles of atoms being pushed around. But, there's something spiritual about us whether we give that a religious interpretation or not. And so, it's that sense of there being dignity to life that I associate with the word God. I mean, that's probably a pretty radical and agnostic way of interpreting it. But, that's what I think.
If people think that women only wear the burqa because of coercive pressure, let them create ample opportunities for them, at the same time enforce laws making primary and secondary education compulsory, and then see what women actually do.
It's a form of human love to accept our complicated, messy humanity and not run away from it.
I enjoy intellectual companionship.
Fear is ubiquitous in human life. It starts in infancy with our primal state of helplessness, where we can see what's going on but we can't move to get it. As we grow older we become a little more able to get what we want but then we're going to die so that gives fear another boost.
If you've been betrayed by a spouse or a partner, it's much easier to focus on causing that person pain than it is to turn forward and actually create a life that's worthy of you in the future.
I listen to music. I particularly love Mozart.
Men in particular think that they have achieved something if they can make a woman mad, particularly if she is calm and intellectual.
As an undergraduate, I studied the Greek and Roman classics, and I went to graduate school in classics intending to work on the presentation of moral issues in various Greek and Roman tragedies.
