I do what I do in my mother's name because I couldn't help her then. Now I can.

I've been an activist all my life. And always a liberal activist, for the simple reason that it is on the liberal left that you find the true recognition for the need for fairness in society. I'm not saying equality, because that you can never achieve, because equality is based on such complex criteria. But fairness is another issue.

Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world. It's been hard on me because flying the Enterprise for seven years in Star Trek and sitting in Cerebro in X-men has led people to believe that I know what I'm talking about. But I'm still trying to work out how to operate the air conditioning unit on my car.

I began directing episodes, which was a great light every couple of months. We never short-changed our audience, but it became something that you had to work at rather than something that was a pleasure.

There's no such thing as "just a domestic".

Creating a believable world on the ship was very important, and technically they got better and better and better at showing the ship too.

It is what you do from now on that will either move our civilization forward a few tiny steps, or else... begin to march us steadily backward.