I felt early on I wasn't going to be a respectable citizen.

I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.

I felt early on I wasn't going to be a respectable citizen.

Even if what you're working on doesn't go anywhere, it will help you with the next thing you're doing. Make yourself available for something to happen. Give it a shot.

I remember in grammar school the teacher asked if anyone had any hobbies. I was the only one with any hobbies and I had every hobby there was... name anything, no matter how esoteric. I could have given everyone a hobby and still had 40 or 50 to take home.

If you think about some of the things that are being talked about by thoughtful, intelligent scientists, you realize that in 100 years the human race won't even be recognizable.

My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold, and anything else is just a waste of time.

People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better, and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore, and people need to get used to that.

The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.

I get asked, 'Who would you really like to work with?' I'm already working with them. Smart, talented, funny people, good musicians, an extended family, good friends.

It came as a surprise to find that a professional society and journal (Econometrica) were flourishing, and I entered this area of study with great enthusiasm.

Don’t get upset with people or situations. Both are powerless without your reaction.

People don't admire you for what you hate, they admire you for what you do about it, and your slacks.

It's so much worse to live in regret in your forties than it is to take a chance in your late twenties.

I wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to be a model.

Understanding is the heartwood of well-spoken words.

I want to do science fiction with dark stories.

If Obamacare is allowed to stand - and Congress is allowed to make the purchase of government-endorsed health insurance compulsory - there will be no meaningful limit on Washington's reach into the lives of the American people. That is certainly not what the Founders intended.

At a certain point, you have to face the fact that you've turned into an old fart.

In Italy the artist is a god. Now if the artist is a god, the scientist is likewise a god.

Praise the bridge that carried you over.

A happy home is one in which each spouse grants the possibility that the other may be right though neither believes it.

I'm excited about what the future will bring and I think the best is yet to come.

Without ethics, man has no future. This is to say, mankind without them cannot be itself. Ethics determine choices and actions and suggest difficult priorities.

All policies should be guided by science, not just whose voice is the loudest.

Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea that they subsequently express with their hands.

A lot of the stuff I've accumulated over the last few years of touring I thought was really interesting. Like sounds, sound bites, and beats even, but they weren't good dance beats they weren't ones anyone would want to rap over or anything.

A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in.

I've climbed Stromboli when it's erupting, which is quite a heavy climb: three hours with a helmet to get to the top. When you're there, and it's dark, and you can see this eruption and feel it, it's quite different to watching it on TV.

No government in the world today has explicitly assigned the responsibility for planetary protection to any of its agencies.

I originated my own cliches, but I'm finding that's not working for me anymore.

I will try to work for greater reconciliation, cooperation and peace in North East Asia based on correct perception of history.

One week before my 17th birthday, I had a blind date with June Rose, a television actress on network soap operas, a model, and a regular on the popular Dick Clark's Saturday night 'American Bandstand' show from New York. We were married five years later, one week after my graduation from Columbia.