Life is challenging for everyone. If someone can believe that he's a sovereign in his tiny domain, it's just an adaptation to life.

When people have no interest in a subject, it's very hard to get them to laugh about it. If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes.

Advertising is a conscienceless industry, populated by cowards and idiots, that warps and drains everyone. It eggs on the worst in all of us. If I could eliminate either advertising or nuclear weapons, I would choose advertising.

As a John Kerry supporter, I wanted to send him a check. But then it occurred to me that most of that money would end up in the hands of advertising agencies and television networks. And the money would be used to create deceptive commercials that flatter our point of view and shade the facts our way. And I wasn't comfortable with that. But on the other hand, that's how the game is played. You're always grappling.

If there's reason for hope, it lies in man's occasional binges of cooperation. To save our planet, we'll need that kind of heroic effort, in which all types of people join forces for the common good

I'm enthralled by the national yearning that the Russians had during the 50s and 60s. The whole century was pretty rough for them. They suffered genocide, war, poverty, and half the population was sent to labor camps. But they were determined to get into space first.

As a child, I tried to play by the rules. I got very good grades in school; I was an Eagle Scout; and I believed in all of it.