Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past.

It would be suicide in the American academy to show too early an interest beyond your doctoral specialization: charges of everything from charlatanry to ambition would be levied and tenure denied. I've seen this first-hand.

How should we begin to make amends for raising a generation obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth and indifferent to so much else?

For Europe to play a part in the world on the scale of its wealth and its population and its capacities, Europe has to be united in some way, and Europe is not united.

I remember telling my creative writing teacher that you never want to have a journal, because if you lose it, then someone's going to know all your secrets. And then she stopped using a journal, but I always write everything down... Anytime I travel, I try and fill up notepads.

It is not right to play politics with education.

I took a gap year myself after high school and worked on a farm near Lyon, France. I stayed with the Vallet family, picked and packed fruit, and discovered that red wine can be a breakfast drink. That led to further travel as a university student.

I learned a lot from that first record and I learned a lot from my experiences touring, but really the biggest education I got over the past two years was learning the importance of arrangements.