A graduate student who is still learning courses is not really taking a maximum advantage of a research university's offerings. He should already be finished with course-taking, as he would then be able to shape his own taste about what is a good subject for research work in the graduate school.

I think America is a new country. It is a young culture. The spirit of the opening of the West is still with the Americans. It's a very practical and individual-based kind of philosophy that had worked in America for a long time, had been very successful. And the spirit is very much there.

In the latter half of the last century the impact of the expanding influence of Western culture and economic system brought about in China a severe conflict.

As I stand here today and tell you about these, I am heavy with an awareness of the fact that I am in more than one sense a product of both the Chinese and Western cultures, in harmony and in conflict.

The 'Lone Star' experience was tough at the time, but it really allowed me to look at things from a 3,000-foot high view. You can think something is the greatest thing in the world, but, as we know, anything can happen. It really taught me that I always want to make choices that I believe in artistically. No one can take that away from you.

The idea of ignoring your past, only to confront it later in life, is a familiar experience whether you come here from Hungary or French Canada or Ireland.

I instantly took the offer to judge 'Indian Idol' because I know the journey from being judged to judging on the same stage is going to be a memorable experience for me.

Rhetoric and dialectics can't change what I have learned from observation and experience.