On top of my to-do list in preparing for Beijing is 'On China' by Henry Kissinger, who has had firsthand experience with every top Chinese leader since Mao, so his insights are valuable and his access is perhaps unrivaled.

The U.S. tries to provide immigrants who grow up here with a world-class education and imbue them with the can-do attitude that has long defined American innovation.

China's history is marked by thousands of years of world-changing innovations: from the compass and gunpowder to acupuncture and the printing press. No one should be surprised that China has re-emerged as an economic superpower.

Every year, some 65,000 high school students - many of them star students and leaders in their communities - are unable to go to college or get a good job because they have no legal status.

Money is a strange thing. It ranks with love as our greatest source of joy, and with death as our greatest source of anxiety.

I have three lovely children. They are beautiful, talented, and kind-hearted. I'm most proud of them. I love them so much that I will never want to burden them with a large amount of inherited wealth.

The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center has this wonderful program where they take in the youth, feed them, help them learn how to cook, clean, they help them get jobs, help them learn how to save their money, and they have shelters all over the city.

The alchemy of good curating amounts to this: Sometimes, placing one work of art near another makes one plus one equal three. Two artworks arranged alchemically leave each intact, transform both, and create a third thing.