The willingness to be self-critical in England is much greater than the willingness to be self-critical in America.

You think it matters to the kids whether they're learning to play on a Steinway or a normal piano?

Part of me thinks that innovation, real innovation in health care delivery, needs to happen from the bottom to the top.

So, it's a very, you know - maybe we're wrong in - you know, we go around thinking the innovator is the person who's first to kind of conceive of something. And maybe the innovation process continues down the line to the second and the third and the fourth entrant into a field.

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.

I have never wanted a family. I don't believe in marriage, though I obviously believe it should be legal for everyone who wants to do it. But it is not something I believe in, nor do the characters in my book, nor do any of my friends.

I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things - such as traditional marriage - that, I think, express a community's concern and regard for a particular institution.