It took me 45 minutes to get in all of the suits and putting all the dosimeters on me so that they knew how much radiation I got and the protective boots and everything.

You're feeling the responsibility for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people on your shoulder in a way that I couldn't feel as lieutenant governor.

They're calling their Washington sources at the NRC or in Congress and they're not hesitating to give their opinion, but their opinion, frankly, in those early days was not very well informed.

Nobody could tell us or really had a very good idea, if there were a massive release of radiation, what kind of medical treatment people were going to need and this or that, or, indeed, whether there would be medical personnel around.

It took me 45 minutes to get in all of the suits and putting all the dosimeters on me so that they knew how much radiation I got and the protective boots and everything.

All of the information that we were getting up to that time from the NRC people, from our people who knew something about nuclear power, was that the breach of the core was not a likelihood to happen.

The first one, obviously, was walking into my office at eight o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, and being told there was a telephone call saying that there was an incident at Three Mile Island, and that it had shut down and that beyond that we didn't know.

And I remember walking in there and, I must say, I was quite unnerved the closer I got to it.

By Thursday morning, we'd gotten over the worst of it.

You need a graphic understanding of a situation to make a complete judgment and we didn't have that.

And it was at that point that I realized, in fact, our whole administration realized, that we could not rely on Metropolitan Edison for the kind of information we needed to make decisions.

My time inside there was very short compared to the amount of time it took to take on and take off this suit and to test me for how much radioactivity I have.

None of us knew what this power plant looked like. We had no schematic drawing.

I was scheduled to give my first official press conference that morning anyway, 'cause I was chairman of the Governors Energy Council and I was making a press conference with regard to energy policy.

None of us are nuclear experts, but we know that if there is a melt-down and breach of containment, that's clearly the most odious thing that could happen.

What I had said in the morning was that this is what we know has happened, but there has been no significant off-site release. Only to find out moments later that, in fact, there had been an off-site release. I still haven't gotten over that.

There were schools and hospitals who were ready to take people with undescribed injuries, but not necessarily ready to take people with severe radiation poisoning.

There are allowable limits for radiation going - I mean there's radiation all around us. There's radiation from your television set. There's radiation from your computer. There's radiation actually occurring in the ground.

Another very strong image from the first day was giving my initial press conference in the morning - going down and finding out that everything I had said, the essence of what I had said, was wrong.

The value of government to the people it serves is in direct relationship to the interest citizens themselves display in the affairs of state.

But the issue became, how long do you keep the press waiting so that you can gather more information?

Obviously, I'm not looking in the core of the reactor, but I am looking at what, at that time, was considered the source of the trouble, which was the water and where it was.

And if you're not going to have a clear health threat, you don't want to panic people.

When I started walking and I looked down and I saw on the floor this water, which looked like, you know, water in your basement except it happened to be in the auxiliary building of a nuclear power plant.

And at ten, or whatever time, in the morning we had the press conference, what we knew is there had been an incident at Three Mile Island, that it was shut down, that there was water that had escaped but it was contained.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and EPA, et cetera, had worked out what allowable releases are.

Journalists always explain that people are mad at them because they tell the truth, which is often unpleasant or uncomfortable to hear. However, they fail in situations where there is more than one truth.

One of the things I worked very hard on all my life was to be like everyone else. I tried very hard to fit in.

Only those who can accept their own annihilation can have the courage to be true individuals.

My life just got taken over by my cooking. If you don't have any discipline, which I don't, you can make 10 gallons of chocolate mousse, take a spoonful and another and another, and you won't realize you've eaten like five servings of it. It's just what you do.

I really miss Diana. I loved her so much.

Find a place inside where theres joy and that will burn out the pain.

Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force.

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

But the mind travels far - and mysteriously - in sleep.

Optimism is the key.

There are so many stories about boys becoming heroes, learning their powers and becoming incredibly heroic. There have to be those stories for girls, too.

You read a book from beginning to end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end, and then you do everything you must to reach it.

Books are alive, you see. They're not dead, they're alive.

I was born in 1960, and space theory, especially in the last part of that time and going into the '70s, space was very relevant at that time. It was on television - all the experiments, the moon landings, everything like that.

The most important thing that I've learnt is that the perfect body doesn't exist.

Misconception Number 1, the public always thought, 'Reggie has a massive ego; he's narcissistic, he's cocky, he needs everyone to look at him all the time,' because that's what the media told them. Wrong. I could handle the attention. I didn't let the attention affect my performance. But I never needed the attention.

From zoning to labor to food safety to insurance, local food systems daily face a phalanx of regulatory hurdles designed and implemented to police industrial food models but which prejudicially wipe out the antidote: appropriate scaled local food systems.

I was the overweight kid who didn't have a boyfriend. I listened to other people say, 'You're ugly, you're fat, you're stupid,' and I believed it.

My American gay audience have continued to dance and sing to the music I make in a way that straight Americans haven't. I am grateful to them for that.

Its about time we quit playing church in these services that start at eleven o clock sharp and end at twelve o clock dull.

We've made science experiments of ourselves and our children.

Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.

The way that light hits objects in life, three-dimensional objects before you photograph them, is really the story of photography.