Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change.

I think America is really well-positioned, because we do train people to be creative and sometimes resist authority, which helps in being an innovator. I think you're going to see for the next phase of the revolution all sorts of wonderful ways of connecting art and literature and journalism into new forms of digital expression.

Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you're not busy being born, you're busy dying.

I think right now we need to look back at the founding values of our country. Rise above partisanship, be less bitter when it comes to important matters that have to be solved.

When you write biographies, whether it's about Ben Franklin or Einstein, you discover something amazing: They are human.

Leonardo da Vinci did not take received wisdom - whether from ancient classical thinkers or medieval scholars or from the Bible - without questioning it. And this was the beginning of the scientific method. This is another lesson for our time: that when we have evidence that contradicts a certain belief, we should be willing to change it. I think this made Leonardo, in some ways, a person who better understood the beauty of God's creation than a person who just takes all received wisdom from the Bible on faith.

Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different... to think out of the box.