For now, we assume that self-evolving robots will learn to mimic human traits, including, eventually, humor. And so, I can't wait to hear the first joke that one robot tells to another robot.

People travel because it teaches them things they could learn no other way.

Would it be anything like a literary disaster if Gore Vidal were to fall silent? Easy. No. In fact, there is something to be said for the idea.

Leaders make things possible. Exceptional leaders make them inevitable.

Vatican II was a force that seized the mind of the Roman Catholic Church and carried it across centuries from the 13th to the 20th.

The jumbo jet is the airborne equivalent of the interstate highway...One might as well be stuffed into a cartridge and shot through a pneumatic tube, like interoffice mail.

Religious hatreds tend to be merciless and absolute.