And, uh, I did that, and there was nothing more ridiculous to me than finding the weight of the earth because I didn't care how much the earth weighed.

It just happened that the public happened to, uh, appreciate the satirical quality of these crazy things.

Uh, I just had an operation last March which was rather serious and I'm recuperating now. I'm on a very bland diet. But, uh, I'm lucky, I was just lucky, that's all.

Many of the younger generation know my name in a vague way and connect it with grotesque inventions, but don't believe that I ever existed as a person. They think I'm a nonperson, just a name that signifies a tangled web of pipes or wires or strings that suggest machinery. My name to them is like a spiral staircase, veal cutlets, barber's itch — terms that give you an immediate picture of what they mean.

And during my college, at the end of the junior year I worked in a mine.

I wonder how anybody can think his personality changes with his success. I've had quite a bit of success but I feel that I'm just the same person as I always was.

Naturally, I'm conservative; I'm a Republican. I always was.