Starting in the 1970s, American cars started to lose market share to foreign cars. It was clear what was happening - these better-made foreign car companies were encroaching on the U.S., and the U.S. car makers had less than half of their own country...
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.
We tend to admire the people in our society who have accumulated such wealth as to seem somehow great. But we shouldn't forget that it was the everyday working class man who made this country great.
I'm not Catholic, but I have a great deal of respect for Pope John Paul. I think that he has stood firm on the moral issues, and I admire him greatly.
Even though the vast majority of my work was outside television, the amount of creation and inventing that went into the TV shows was non stop and, unknown to me, a great strain.
It requires more strength to be gentle, so it's the everyday encounters of life that I think we've prepared children for and prepared them to be good to other people and to consider other people.
There's enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.
It seems to me we have been in a rhetorical arms race in this country, with each side unwilling to lay down its weapons for fear - usually justified - the other side would beat them to a pulp.
A talk show is about having a look at a famous face, a bit of stand-up comedy, knockabout stuff - an interview is what Barbara Walters or Connie Chung does in the States, in-depth, done properly.
I was learning things in school rather than learning how to teach myself, which is what you have to do in life, so I just abandoned it and did ceramics for a year and a half.
When I started out back in Louisville, there was Harry Collins. He was my first teacher. He saw that I was so obsessed with magic that he taught me the love of magic.
Just as actors are afraid of child audiences because they're so honest, I would be scared stiff of going before the big folks.
However, I believe that it would be difficult to have legitimate scientists agree to participate.
The problem with experiments has always been that human beings make the decisions on whether or not the animals have benefitted from the treatment.
The reason I can give wonder is that I feel wonder about the world: the stars, a tree, my body - everything.
I arrived at school pensive, introverted, and not very sporty, so magic became a place of mystery and intrigue, an escape for my boyish mind.
I think there's a huge amount of magic on television, which is slightly vapid: there's no real meaning or message behind it; it is simply a trick.
I would like to do things like I did in Tanzania, going somewhere and exploring a theme and investigating as well as performing for those people.
I've never categorically been a banker. I had two internships while I was at university. The decision was more banking, or magic, and I went with the latter.
I don't try to show off technology in my work. The technology is a means to tell stories, so I think conversations about my work can be had by very large audiences.
So, I am independently well-off and don't have to do anything, but I still do. I write books, lecture around the world, work with scientists and governments.
