Characters last. Beautiful writing lasts. A compelling narrative lasts. Art survives long after ideas go extinct.

Most geniuses are just talented people who get up really early in the morning.

It depends on your specific conception of God, because belief can equally well leave you with this constant sense that you're coming up short and you're being judged and you're not doing quite the perfect thing. You know, I was brought up very religiously, and I never totally lost that sense, you know, that I'm screwing up.

Right-thinking people are not supposed to discuss any meteorological or geophysical event - a hurricane, a wildfire, a heat wave, a drought, a flood, a blizzard, a tornado, a lightning strike, an unfamiliar breeze, a strange tingling on the neck - without immediately invoking the climate crisis. It causes earthquakes, plagues and backyard gardening disappointments. Weird fungus on your tomato plants? Classic sign of global warming.

The Enron scandal calls into question the integrity of the entire capitalist system, which previously we assumed was based on honest, straightforward greed.

You might declare that global warming and energy insecurity, not to mention urban sprawl and pollution, have intensified the sin of indulging one's motoring desires. And I would not argue with that point. You're right. I am a bad man. But over the long term, if you want to develop a new transportation and energy policy, you'd probably want to err on the side of assuming that people won't change much. And it is human nature to like to be empowered.

Uncertainty is inevitable at the frontiers of knowledge.