I was an extremely reclusive and introverted boy.

My mother also had us take piano lessons, and this had a similar effect. I hated those lessons, but I now play regularly for pleasure and have even tried my hand at composing.

The questions worth asking, in other words, come not from other people but from nature, and are for the most part delicate things easily drowned out by the noise of everyday life.

I was an extremely reclusive and introverted boy.

At Berkeley I had my first encounter with real professional scientists.

My job at Stanford is rather different from the ones I had held previously in that my own ambitions must take a back seat to the well-being of the students with whom I work.

I also taught myself how to blow glass using a propane torch from the hardware store and managed to make some elementary chemistry plumbing such as tees and small glass bulbs.

In parallel with the development of my interests in technical gadgetry I began to acquire a profound love of and respect for the natural world which motivates my scientific thinking to this day.

As a consequence while we had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes to wear to school we were constantly conscious of being of modest means.

When I moved to Stanford I began to pursue the line of research I have been following ever since, namely trying to understand the larger implications of fractional quantum hall discovery.

My childhood home backed onto wheat and cotton fields.

Western society has many flaws, and it is good for an educated person to have thought some of these through, even at the expense of losing a lecture or two to tear gas.

One of the terrific aspects of MIT in those days was the enormous variety of experimental work that either took place there or was talked about in seminars by outside speakers aggressively recruited by the faculty.

But the need for conflict to expose prejudice and unclear reasoning, which is deeply embedded in my philosophy of science, has its origin in these debates.

It was at this moment that I wrote my first important paper in theoretical physics. I was 32 years old, 5 years beyond the alleged age of senility for theorists.

It was at Bell Labs that I first made direct contact with real semiconductor experts and thus began to fully understand what amazing materials they were and what they could do.

My mother, who was professional schoolteacher, was particularly concerned about our formal education and even went so far as to start a private school together with some other parents so that our intellectual needs would be met.

It is an interesting fact that during my tour I was never allowed access to computers, radios, or anything else that I might damage through curiosity, or perhaps something more sinister.

To this day I always insist on working out a problem from the beginning without reading up on it first, a habit that sometimes gets me into trouble but just as often helps me see things my predecessors have missed.

Another important aspect of our home was respect for ideas.

Over the course of time this gave us a deep respect for ideas, both our own and those of others, and an understanding that conflict through debate is a powerful means of revealing truth.

They invented hugs to let people know you love them without saying anything.

I do a lot of gay-friendly stuff in my show, and men, women, they all love it. I practice non-judgment in my daily life and hope other people do the same thing.

It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.

Breakfast is a big deal. I love it.

Somebody the other day had a review, called me 'America's reprobate.' And I don't even know what that means, but I kinda like the way it sounds.

For me, writing essays, prose and fiction is a great way to be self-indulgent.

My mother and father didn't love each other, so they were always fighting.

When I tell people I work to stop hazing in high schools I am almost always met with shocked expressions. 'High school? Really? I thought that was something that only arrogant frat guys do in college.' But it's true - as long as I have worked on preventing bullying in high schools, I have worked to prevent hazing.

Beauty is an expression of that rapture of being alive.

In the end, a new Americanization movement can't just be about listing our privileges and immunities, which we catalog in our laws. It also has to be about reinforcing our duties, which we convey in our habits.

I am willing to work with anyone that wants to do what is best for this country.

I'm a recovering politician.

We panic if there's two centimeters of snow in London.

We need people who dream impossible things, who maybe fail, sometimes succeed, but in any case who have that ambition.

Wiffle ball was my first experience hitting left-handed.

Our educational system is like an automobile which has strong rear lights, brightly illuminating the past. But looking forward things are barely discernible.

I see the Internet as the next big deal - I wanted to get in on it early on so I wouldn't get behind it all.

I didn't hang around films. I don't know if I'd ever seen Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.

Those who have lost an infant are never, in a way, without an infant.

Louis C.K. directs his show, which is very much like a series of short films.

It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work.

Art is the proper task of life.

I never had a single conversation about politics with Ross Perot in my life; still haven't.

I've spent my whole life being told I have a face like a horse. You are just what you are, aren't you?