I once drove a pair of horses from New York to Vicksburg, and to this day I can almost map out that country as I saw it then, with its hills and valleys, villages and rivers. Yes, I naturally attribute something of my success in railroad building to ...
In America, if you succeed, you don't have to apologize. In Italy, success is envied, and envy is the worst, worst, worst thing in the world. It's easy for me to say because I have had more than many others, but at the end of the day, I have never en...
When an industry matures, it means it's not advancing, and of course the jobs go overseas. That's the obligation of the multi-national corporation: to put the factory where it can make the widget as cheap as possible. Don't get angry when a corporati...
I have earned wages as a waitress, a nanny, a librarian, a personnel officer, an agricultural laborer, an advertising secretary, a typesetter, a proofreader, a mental-health-care provider, a substitute teacher, and a book reviewer. In and around the ...
Technology is usually there to let some process go on hidden in the background. For us on 'MythBusters,' we're always trying to make the process apparent. So, we have learned to try and never rely on a technological solution when an analogue one is i...
I think that for all of the dangers of technology spreading, I think it is more dangerous in some ways that it doesn't. My simple reason for that is we've got 7 billion people on the planet, and we have these very serious problems, and I think we don...
The role I see for my books is trying to think through the consequences of various things because a lot of the issues around technology and the nuances in it are not usually widely appreciated. That's how I view my writing as I sort of explore this t...
There are more humans than all of the rabbits on earth. There are more of us than all the wildebeests, than all the rats, than all the mice. We are the most numerous mammal on the planet. But because we're not like rabbits or rats or mice, we have te...
There was a study done in the early 20th century of all the entrepreneurs who entered the automobile industry around the same time as Henry Ford; there were something like 500 automotive companies that got funded, had the internal combustion engine, ...
Companies selling a product play down its vulnerability and emphasize its robustness. But only after technology leaves the dock is it really tested. For human operators in control of a supposedly infallible system, complacency and overconfidence can ...
Surveying the way viruses have been discovered in the past, I came to the conclusion that I could use my technology that I developed as a graduate student - DNA microarray technology - to create a chip that would simultaneously screen for all viruses...
Technology sometimes gets a bad rap because of certain consequences that it's had on the environment and unforeseen problems, but we shouldn't use it as an excuse to reject our tools; rather, we should decide that we need to make better tools to solv...
There's been resistance to every new technology that's ever been introduced. When books came out hundreds of years ago, there were complaints that it would destroy the oral tradition. Some of those fears were justified, but it didn't stop the rise of...
You know, everyone is always talking about plastic surgery, or the technology, what to do. I really think it's important to help yourself with the technology if you want to feel better, but I am absolutely against any kind of monstrous cuts of the bo...
If most people were to take a moment to picture in their minds the average, not-for-profit, save-the-world girl, they... well, they probably wouldn't, because who wants to think about hemp, hairy legs, and Birkenstocks? But I'd rather eat a pair of B...
One of the things that I love to do is travel around the world and look at archaeological sites. Because archaeology gives us an opportunity to study past civilizations, and see where they succeeded and where they failed. Use science to, you know, wo...
You know, I love all kinds of activism. I certainly think blacks deserve to have something whether it is affirmative action or an opportunity that should be opened up to them. But at the same time I believe that people of color are not the only poor ...
My dream is to have a baby, not to adopt one, because I am not up to it and I don't feel strong enough. I want my own child, a biological child, the fruit of my sperm, conceived through artificial insemination because it wouldn't make sense for me to...
What we found was that Generation Y is absolutely consumed with news. They love news; it's one of their biggest passion points. The problem is they've been disenfranchised by traditional media outlets, and because of that - look, if the world was goi...
I would love to do a musical. I would love that. I would have to find the right book, the right story, but some day I'm going to make one. I would really like to go off and direct a musical. That's what I would really like to do when I grow up.
Love is a big thing - it's part of who you become, how you grow up. I had a wonderful husband, and I'm very lucky I have a second wonderful husband. You know, some people don't even score the first time.
