I tell students that the opportunities I had were a result of having a good educational background. Education is what allows you to stand out.

You can't have a university without having free speech even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education.

Education is the key to success in life and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.

I am sure my fellow-scientists will agree with me if I say that whatever we were able to achieve in our later years had its origin in the experiences of our youth and in the hopes and wishes which were formed before and during our time as students.

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

When nearly a third of our high school students do not graduate on time with their peers we have work to do. We must design our middle and high schools so that no student gets lost in the crowd and disconnected from his or her own potential.

Over the past 20 years I have noticed that the most flexible dynamic inquisitive minds among my students have been industrial design majors. Industrial designers are bracingly free of ideology and cant. The industrial designer is trained to be a clear-eyed observer of the commercial world - which like it or not is modern reality.

I prefer ordinary girls - you know college students waitresses that sort of thing. Most of the girls I go out with are just good friends. Just because I go out to the cinema with a girl it doesn't mean we are dating.

Today in America we are trying to prepare students for a high tech world of constant change but we are doing so by putting them through a school system designed in the early 20th Century that has not seen substantial change in 30 years.

Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?