Actors will change their face, will change their hair, will change their voice, will disappear into the role. A movie star doesn't disappear.

Roddenberry had his own utopian vision about he perfectibility of man, and I never really believed that. And I don’t think the show demonstrates that. I think it is about gunboat diplomacy. In the final analysis, the Enterprise fires. They’re always shooting and bringing civilization, and coming to worlds where they don’t approve of tyrannical enterprises – no pun intended – and they substitute their own quote unquote enlightened version of how society is supposed to work, which is essentially American.

No rock and roll ensemble, however inspired, can deliver the kind of musical variety obtainable with the resources of 110 instruments.

In fact, we've entered a world which is arguably much more dangerous than [being] eyeball to eyeball with the USSR.

Schools and libraries are the twin cornerstones of a civilized society. Libraries are only good if people use them, like books only exist when someone reads them.

Having done, you know, science fiction, I didn't want to get trapped in science fiction. So my eclecticism was my only conscious choice. I didn't want to find myself in a niche that I couldn't get out of.

There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.