You have the illusion of free will, but, in fact, that illusion comes about because you don't know the future. Because you are a prisoner of the present, forever locked in transition, between the past and the future.

When everyone agrees to a single solution and a single plan, there's nothing more efficient in the world than an efficient democracy.

Many people are unhappy because there was some point in their past where there was some glory day, and as they get older they're not creating more glory days. They reflect on a time that they will never reach again, and it brings some level of dissatisfaction into their lives. I have circumvented that by simply making incumbent upon myself to always be productive in ways that are consistent with my physical body, my mental state of knowledge, but more important, my presumed growth in wisdom that would come with age.

If a scientist is not befuddled by what they're looking at, then they're not a research scientist.

I don't have specific television ambitions in the sense that I remain fundamentally and academic, and so, my innermost ambitions are what's the next discovery I can make; that's in my direct center.

The past is another planet.

You can't be a writer and have nothing to write about. You have to have life experiences.