“I would trade places with you in a heartbeat — to be able to do what you’re doing.”
—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Lady Vols basketball team while he was visiting the Knoxville campus to lecture last fall
“Do you know how much power you have at eighteen, twenty-two, twenty-five? [President] Barack Obama just touched the tip of it in 2008. You have an enormous amount of clout. If you pay taxes, you have a stake in what happens. Your vote matters, . . . it matters.”
—Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele speaking to UT Knoxville students September 14, 2010
“I just want to show them the Southern chefs can cook more than biscuits and gravy.”
—Masa Yamashita, UT Chattanooga’s executive chef, who earned the gold medal in the ARAMARK Culinary Excellence national competition after preparing a three-course meal with ingredients from a mystery basket that contained a chicken, fava beans, artichokes, almonds, and a whole black bass