The worst thing about Halloween is, of course, candy corn. It's unbelievable to me. Candy corn is the only candy in the history of America that's never been advertised. And there's a reason. All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911. ...
I thought of the idea of Summly in March or April 2011. I was 15 years old and I was revising for some kind of history exam. The problem was I was trying to find information that was useful to me. When you type into Google an esoteric term, you get q...
The cosmos is three times as old as Earth. During most of creation's 14 billion year history, our solar system wasn't around. Nonetheless, the early universe still had the right stuff for life, and contained worlds that were just as suitable for spaw...
I started out playing traditional jazz, and I still do: I love standards, I love the music. But it must move on, and it must live and breathe, and continue to grow, and continue to change, and continue to mesh with other music - all that kind of stuf...
When we did a lot of that Motown stuff there were four of us on the front line. When we started the evening we'd start from one end of the band and just go along. The lead singer would change all the time. That's the first time that I actually manage...
I don't believe - till something radical changes that we are not on track to do - that hybrids are material to climate change. They're fashionable, everybody loves them, the Prius is selling well, but so are Gucci bags. But they don't impact the way ...
Computers are scary. They're nightmares to fix, lose our stuff, and, on occasion, they crash, producing the blue screen of death. Steve Jobs knew this. He knew that computers were bulky and hernia-inducing and Darth Vader black. He understood the val...
I'm sure there are close calls that we're not even aware of hundreds of times a year. You cross the street, and if you'd crossed the street two minutes later, you'd have been hit by a car, but you'd never know it. I'm sure that kind of stuff happens ...
It's something he used to say when he was happy. It could be a very, very simple day. We might be sitting out on the front lawn. Dad loved classical music and we might be listening to some Stravinsky or something and having some tea and eggs. And he'...
I'm a huge NASCAR fan, but I'm not a gearhead. I've never been into fixing cars. It's not because I don't like it. I would love to know more. It's just my dad never taught me that stuff because my dad wasn't a mechanic.
I know when I'm not dancing, and I go home, I usually work with my dad, who's an electrician. So I do stuff like that. I used to be a landscape gardener. I loved that job. But I'd like to be involved with entertainment. Singing or something, I guess.
I think Prince should open up a little more to other artists. Just because we love Prince. Especially the old stuff - we love him to death. But if he opened up he would be something to deal with. Imagine Kanye West producing a Prince track? It would ...
XTC is my favorite band; I'm a huge Neil Young fan, Jayhawks, all that type of stuff. I like Death Cab for Cutie, also Ryan Adams. I try to impress my children: 'Have you listened to such-and-such?' They're not impressed.
As one of the first editors at 'Outside' magazine in 1975, it was my contention that most American writing going back to James Fennimore Cooper and then through Twain up to Hemingway had been outdoor writing. At that time, adventure writing meant stu...
The dirty little secret on Wall Street: Eighty percent of the Wall Street executives' and their spouses' donations go to Democrats. It's like they've got some kind of little sweet deal, where we'll call you fat cats and demean you and stuff, but you ...
I have experienced bad dating and ineptitude with women all across the globe, from Vietnam to Paris. When I was 21, women were an enigma; they were this code that had to be cracked. They were 'The Other.' I have often thought writing this stuff into ...
If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more c...
One of my great regrets, and I don't have many, is that I spent too long putting people's status and reputation ahead of their more important qualities. I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone's name is no guarantee o...
The villain is usually the most interesting part. But it has to be a smart thing. Just dumb cliche villains with a Russian accent and big muscles and a mean face, I don't know. My Russian accent isn't that great, and the muscles aren't that big and t...
There was one I did called 'The Phantom,' and we did a sequel to that called, 'Return of the Phantom.' I thought there was wonderful stuff in that. There was another show I love called 'Man Beast,' where I was the star, and I turned into a Beast; one...
I spent so many years of my life as a stage actor and when you do all these plays, a lot of really great plays are very politically driven. They deal with deep social issues, and that's the kind of stuff that I love, as an audience member.
