The best museums and museum exhibits about science or technology give you the feeling that hey this is interesting but maybe I could do something here too.

I'm not precisely saying that a really good board meeting at the MLA (Museums Libraries and Archives Coucil) makes me want to go and write poetry but there is a pleasure in doing that sort of thing well.

What other people may find in poetry or art museums I find in the flight of a good drive.

I don't need to be asking for money for local museums and other projects just to make me look good back home.

The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums.

Our universities and museums are respected around the country.

I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums concert halls and civic buildings.

Being in America isn't old-hat - it's where we're from - but I get excited to be in other parts of the world like Athens and Croatia which were quite cool. I'm a sightseer. I go see the sights and museums. I'm into that kind of thing.

I felt I had to share Idaho with my friend from New York because he'd shared New York with me so I was going to share the beauty of nature with a man who went to museums and clubs late at night. But there was nothing to do where I lived at night.

I love doing normal things - movies shopping going out with friends writing reading taking hot bubble baths - that's a big one for relaxation. I also love to go to art and history museums.

Of course art world ethics are important. But museums are no purer than any other institution or business. Academics aren't necessarily more high-minded than gallerists.

When museums are built these days architects directors and trustees seem most concerned about social space: places to have parties eat dinner wine-and-dine donors. Sure these are important these days - museums have to bring in money - but they gobble up space and push the art itself far away from the entrance.

Outside museums in noisy public squares people look at people. Inside museums we leave that realm and enter what might be called the group-mind getting quiet to look at art.

Many museums are drawing audiences with art that is ostensibly more entertaining than stuff that just sits and invites contemplation. Interactivity gizmos eating hanging out things that make noise - all are now the norm often edging out much else.

The art world is molting - some would say melting. Galleries are closing museums are scaling back.

Summer is a great time to visit art museums which offer the refreshing rinse of swimming pools - only instead of cool water you immerse yourself in art.

It is veneer rouge aestheticism art museums new theaters etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football kindness and jazz bands.

Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.

But we cannot rely on memorials and museums alone. We can tell ourselves we will never forget and we likely won't. But we need to make sure that we teach history to those who never had the opportunity to remember in the first place.