"Back in the days when the market was a kind of secular god and all the world thrilled to behold the amazing powers of private capital, the idea of privatizing highways and airports and other bits of our transportation infrastructure made a certain kind of sense."

"Concerns about the size and role of government are what seem to leave reformers stammering and speechless in town-hall meetings. The right wants to have a debate over fundamental principles elected Democrats seem incapable of giving it to them."

"The great fear that hung over the business community in the 1970s was death by regulation, and the great goal of the conservative movement, as it rose to triumph in the 1980s, was to remove that threat - to keep OSHA, the EPA, and the FTC from choking off entrepreneurship with their infernal meddling in the marketplace."

"For-profit higher education is today a booming industry, feeding on the student loans handed out to the desperate."

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."

"It is a humble truth that stand firm when justice demands it, even if you stand entirely alone — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"When you're taking the country through difficult times and difficult decisions you've got to take the country with you. That means permanently trying to make the argument that what you're doing is fair and seen to be fair."