There's something about the human brain, that it actually has a predilection towards negativity, which served us really well when we lived in an environment that was very threatening.

I remind myself that the universe is 15 billion years old, and I'm only 46 years old, so my perspective is sort of limited and fear-based and skewed.

I'm not Catholic but the Virgin Mary fascinates me because she's like a folk hero.

If you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed ot tortured, then you shouldn't condone such behaviour towards anyone, be they human or not.

Everyone feels awkward, everyone feels uncomfortable, everyone gets older, everyone gets lonely, everyone gets sick, everyone eventually dies. You’re at the Aspen Ideas Fest, and you have these really smart, really accomplished people who pretend like they’ve somehow figured out a way to bypass the human condition. We live in this culture where there are so many things that want us to pretend that we’re not truly human.

We hope that as a species we're capable of dealing with environmental catastrophe before it actually does collectively kill most of us.

In a perfect world, I would be 6-foot-3 and have a perfect head of hair and look like Orlando Bloom.