My worst boss was a departmental chair who never learned to appreciate new developments in the field. He had contempt for students and younger researchers, and he saw the job of running the department as a nuisance.
Sometimes I like to think that the responsibility of every new generation of Democrats is to devise a program that mints new Democrats for another seventy-five years or so.
At the same time as we were seizing the lands that we turned into Iraq, we were devising an interesting future for our new protectorate in Palestine, and simultaneously trying to pacify Ireland, where we hit upon the solution of partition in 1921, thereby securing a peaceful resolution to the conflict only 86 years later.
Every great political campaign rewrites the rules; devising a new way to win is what gives campaigns a comparative advantage against their foes.
As a leader, I have always taught my team that changing course after devising a plan doesn't mean you give up on the mission; it just means you have to find a new path.
I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.
I don't believe in, and I am a devout non-believer, in playing new songs live if the subjected and pathetic crowd has not heard them before because I consider it like mass psychosis and genocidal.
Jewish prayers are mostly about daily things - the sliver of a new moon, dew on the grass, the bread and the wine.
I watched 'Dexter,' but it ended in a really weird way. I think it's going to start over again because he's a new character; he's like a fisherman.
I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.
When we started on 'Power,' I was committed to respecting the differences among Spanish dialects: Dominican, Nuyorican, Mexican, etc. I wanted the language our characters spoke to be as specific as possible, to reflect New York as it is.
'Jack & Diane' was originally about race. I was playing nightclubs, and I was seeing new American couples, mixed-race couples. I thought it was cool. The song was my effort to make a song about that, but of course the record-company guy didn't like it.
I can change a diaper in 30 seconds flat. I set the new one beneath the old one. That way, it's just wipe and pull the flap over.
I was obsessed with New York early on. I was watching sitcoms that were set in or around New York, like 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.' I was always very fascinated with the people who were on 'What's My Line?' and I always had an incredible obsession with the city.
I actually grew up in the 'burbs - New Rochelle, specifically, most famously home to Rob and Laura Petrie of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.'
For 'Dum Maro Dum,' I had a diction tutor, as I had to get rid of my Hyderabadi Hindi and learn Goan Hindi. It wasn't easy, because these two kinds of Hindi were mutually incompatible. I had to unlearn one kind of Hindi and then learn a new kind.
When I started my Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego, I was told that it would be difficult to make a new discovery in biology because it was all known. It all seems so absurd now.
My favorite musical? I don't. It changes all the time. I'm just a diehard, I'm totally old school, like I'll sit and watch, if they are re-doing Oklahoma in New York, I will be the first one there.
I live a very quiet life, although I'm very urban and a diehard New Yorker.
I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.
