From the time of Dante [Alighieri], when you have the Ptolemaic universe, you had God on the outside like a hypersphere, and then in the center you have the Earth, all the seven heavens and layers, and then you have the Mount of Purgatory and Hell right in the center, and here's Satan flapping his wings and he keeps making the lake of Cocytus ice so you can't get out. So, again, where Heaven and Hell are, who the hell knows that now?

I was sent to the regular public schools until I had to go to Belmont Hill. Because I wasn't doing anything. The public school was nothing, just a total waste of time.

You know, people who can draw get upset when people who can't start telling them what to do!

Both [Nikola] Tesla and [Leon] Theremin were preternaturally young. I mean, for a long time Tesla was a young man well into his 70s. And so was Theremin, even though, at the end, he looked pretty old. But he was still doing things that young guys do, beyond the time you'd normally think people should be doing that stuff.

[My father] was always upset that my mother didn't want to live in New York. Because he said he wanted to live in a hotel and not have to mow the lawn and all that. In other words, he never liked sports clothes, he always liked to be dressed up formally, 24/7. And he drove big cars and, you know, just loved to act the banker.

[My father] was always saying I'd end up like my grandfather. Okay. My grandfather was an architect, I'm an architect. It's true, certain characteristics are similar.

[Nikola Tesla] would do it through lucid dreaming. He would, in a sense, dream up the engine, forget about it, come back, and then discover where it was wearing. You know, where the parts were wearing out. Now, that's inner visualization and a half! And that was the secret of why he did so many inventions.