There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.

I don't think culture is something you can describe.

For a highly motivated learner, it's not like knowledge is secret and somehow the Internet made it not secret. It just made knowledge easy to find. If you're a motivated enough learner, books are pretty good.

I don't think you're as capable of handling lack of sleep or whatever challenges you throw at your body as you get older. However, I never missed a day of work.

If you're taking care of your family and society and are comfortable you can start to think about helping those most in need globally. That's how we became engaged in those things.

There is this thing called the GPL (Gnu Public Licence), which we disagree with... nobody can ever improve the software.

Taking a look back, one big reqret is, I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world. The appalling disparities of health and wealth and opportunity that condemned millions of people to the lives of despair. I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas and economics, and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences. But humanities greatest advances are not in its discoveries, but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.