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The best opportunities are often ones where you're being contrarian. That doesn't mean being contrarian for contrarian's sake, but it means you're thoughtful about the risks of following the crowd.

I have a different starting premise from those 100 academics who are so heavily invested in the regime of low expectations and narrow horizons which they have created.

I like being surrounded by students and intellectuals.

Today I still feel like the most illiterate person ever to have roamed the campuses of Wellesley and Harvard, where I later transferred. I remain intimidated by all the books I haven't read, but over the years I've come to realize that being a student is a lifelong adventure.

Exposure to a diversity of disciplines has been exceptionally helpful to me.

I have a great interest in a number of things, perhaps too many. I admire people who seem to concentrate on only one fixed discipline to the exclusion of almost everything else.

I'm kind of a builder of institutions. I think I've got some ability to look at what's out here, look at a playing field, and identify gaps and niches.

I like to go to openings when I'm in it, or friends are in it.

Personally I discovered that you could go through the academy as a young scholar, come out, and almost immediately have an impact on the academic environment.