Quote

I have known people who are working class or craftsmen, who happen to be more intellectual than professors.

Academics act like they are important, but when something is academic it is meaningless. People say, 'It's academic, now let's get work done.'

There is a great deal of busywork to a writer's life, as to a professor's life, a great deal of work that matters only in that, if you don't do it, your desk becomes very full of papers. So, there is a lot of letter answering and a certain amount of speaking, though I try to keep that at a minimum.

Productivity is going to be a critical issue. And it's not just about getting more time for professors in the classroom. It involves reexamining the learning experience and restructuring faculty and the use of faculty time.

I had been an academic all my life. As academics, you tend to believe the smartest people are in academia.

Though knowledge itself increasingly ignores boundaries between fields, professors are apt to organize their pedagogy around the methods and history of their academic subculture rather than some coherent topic in the world.

While academic abilities remain integral, it is the work ethics that form the soul of the business.

I actually think that working in the federal government, or state or local, is one of the most significant things that a technical person can do.

In any profession it gets to be a grind.

Though I have friends aplenty in academia, I don't operate within the academic system myself.