As America knows, Obama turned down the lucrative career path guaranteed to the first African-American president of The Harvard Law Review to pursue the missions of service and teaching instead. The potential rewards for our country, now that that ea...
When I did '1,2,3,4' on 'Sesame Street' they'd rewritten the song and made it about counting. At first, I balked. I was like, 'Counting to four? That's where we're going with this?' Then they sent me appearances by other people like James Blunt doing...
The media has changed. We now give broadcast licenses to philosophies instead of people. People get confused and think there is no difference between news and entertainment. People who project themselves as journalists on television don't know the fi...
So, you know, Nathaniel was my first child, born when I was 40, so, uh... And then in due course, he wanted a brother, and then I thought, 'Oh, that'll be bloody lucky!' So, we ended up adopting a beautiful boy who was then five years old, from Ethio...
When I first found out that Superman wasn't real, I was about maybe eight. And I was talking to my mother about it. And she was like, 'No, no, no. There's no Superman.' And I started crying. I really thought he was coming to rescue us. The chaos, the...
[On school uniforms] Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike, now they have to make them look alike too? It's not a new idea, either. I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because...
Insecurity produces either of these two types of individuals: The first type masters those monsters, learns how to command them to and fro and seeks to reduce them in others. The second type is mastered by the monsters, spends the rest of their lives...
I can't deal with the ears in 'Star Trek.' I only saw the first 'Star Wars' movie, and I don't think I saw an entire 'Star Trek' TV show, and I certainly didn't see the movie. I like 'Andy Griffith' and 'Deadwood.'
Well, first of all, I'm an incredibly gullible person - I'm so bad that when I said that to someone, my friend said, 'You know, 'gullible' isn't even in the dictionary.' And I said, 'Really?' As I was saying 'Really?' I will acknowledge that I then r...
My first book, 'In Praise of Slowness,' examines how the world got stuck in fast-forward and chronicles a global trend towards putting on the brakes. That trend is called the Slow movement. 'Slow' in this context does not mean doing everything at a s...
When I sat down and wrote the first paragraph, I was like, 'Oh, I can go with this.' I didn't do an outline. I didn't do anything. I just wrote sentence by sentence, not knowing where the story was going.
First, come to the point where you realize you are alone, completely and utterly alone in the vastness of the universe and all of time. Then realize you are not alone. Look back on your life and see the people who stood by you. There were some. Reali...
The movie I've watched a million times is 'A Face in the Crowd,' directed by Elia Kazan, starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. I first saw this movie, I guess I was in my early 20s. I'd never heard of it, and somebody told me about it, and I watc...
I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other w...
Americans are very big about loving the dog first, so when you tell them you have to set rules and limitations, a lot of people believe it's going to hurt their feelings. They're actually looking for you to be the pack leader.
Back in '96, I was on 'The Price Is Right' pointing at refrigerators, and 'Extra,' the TV show, came down. They were the first entertainment entity that put people up on the Internet, so they put my picture up, and America Online called the next day ...
I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it b...
In theory, at least, all presidents are servants of the people who elected them. In the case of Barack Obama, it has seemed from the start that the idea as applied to him was more than mere metaphor. He is the first president in my lifetime whom the ...
Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribe...
The first autonomous cars date back to the late 20th century. But recent increases in sophistication and reductions in cost - reflected, for example, in cheap LIDAR systems, which can 'see' a street in 3D in a way similar to that of the human eye - a...
When I was very young, I got my first opportunity in television with a show called 'Surfing the Menu,' and it was myself and another buddy. We traveled around Australia and we surfed and cooked and drank too much wine. And we had a lot of fun.
