We are very much social creatures who model ourselves on one another.

My path has not been smooth. But the great thing about getting to be an elder is that you can look back and see the intense times of confusion and challenge, and see that if you keep walking through them, they can lead to times of great satisfaction and reward.

Democracy is not what we have. It is what we do.

Imagine sitting down to an eight ounce steak, and then, imagine the room filled wit 45 to 50 people with empty bowls...For the feed cost of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a cup pf cooked cereal grains.

I read a book in the late 1990s called The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, by Erich Fromm, and it had a profound impact on me. Fromm takes Descartes' statement, "I think, therefore I am" and changes it to "I effect, therefore I am."

I think that fear of embarrassment is the essence of the human challenge.

We hear, "Oh, we need to patent GMOs and develop new strains and new chemicals because Nature can't provide what we need." I have to debate people all the time who say that Nature can't provide enough.