Duke: What you lookin' at old man? Walt Kowalski: Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have fucked with? That's me.
Walt Kowalski: Where's Dr. Feldman, my regular doctor? Dr. Chang: Dr. Feldman retired three years ago, I'm his replacement, Dr. Chu.
I always thought I'd buy my mother a house if I ever became successful - a big, beautiful house on the nicest street in town. It didn't exactly work out that way. I was still borrowing money from her in my 40s.
If people want to believe that our ancestors were riding around on dinosaurs or that the protracted, increasing, and devastating warming of the Earth is just nature doing its thing - I guess I feel I have more useful battles to fight.
Natural capital is easy to overlook because it is the pond we swim in. One can live perfectly well without ever giving a thought to the sulfur cycle or wetland functions. Only when the benefits nature provides are disrupted do we take notice.
I think the international appeal of SF is quite understandable since the kinds of people who like to read it, are, by the nature of the beast, interested in other cultures, of which other nations on Earth are the closest available example.
What holds an Arab leader in power is a mixture of violence and prestige. Both President Assad and King Hussein were felt to have defended Arab interests against the world. That, in the end, is more important than what they wear on their head.
Occupy Wall Street was a disorganized movement without a clear focus and power base - essential in any successful revolution - but the message was clear: the divisions between those who are fortunate enough to enjoy city living as opposed to those wh...
Fundamental systemic crises are often associated with the decline of the dominant imperial power and its increasing inability to sustain the system over which it had previously presided. The profound instability of the interwar period owed much to Br...
The era when the United States was the dominant global power is steadily coming to an end, and it must find a way of acknowledging this and framing its ambitions and interests accordingly. Instead of claiming the right to continuing primacy in east A...
Humanity has nearly suffocated the globe with carbon dioxide, yet nuclear power plants that produce no such emissions are so mired in objections and obstruction that, despite renewed interest on every continent, it is unlikely another will be built i...
The dangers of an Afghan collapse are many: Afghan deaths, a loss of American prestige, a loss of NATO prestige, a moral blow to U.S. troops and veterans, a Taliban resurgence, huge setbacks for women, and greater power for Pakistan and Pakistani ext...
Being president, you may have more power than anyone else in the country, but you quickly discover that you have much, much less than you thought you'd have going in. You're hamstrung in ways you never dreamed of.
Our religion is itself profoundly sad - a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full liberty to the individual and asks no better than to be celebrated in each man's own language - so long as he knows a...
I was pleasantly disappointed on entering Bohemia. Instead of a dull, uninteresting country, as I expected, it is a land full of the most lovely scenery. There is every thing which can gratify the eye - high blue mountains, valleys of the sweetest pa...
I was meant to date the captain of the football team, I was going to be on a romantic excursion every Saturday night, I was destined to be collecting corsages from every boy in town before prom, accepting such floral offerings like competing sacrific...
'Little Night' has layers of meaning. There's something enchanted about night. All those heavenly bodies, shooting stars, the crescent moon, celestial phenomenon. Owls fly at night, and first kisses happen. Night is romantic. Alternately, darkness hi...
There's a hardening of the culture. Reality TV has lowered the standards of entertainment. You're left wondering about the legitimacy of relationships. It's probably harder to entertain the same people with a more classic form of writing, and romanti...
More generally, I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative themes of the book, namely that there were two sides to Steve Jobs: the romantic, poetic, countercultural rebel on one side, and the serious businesspers...
Many a fine SF story uses science or technology merely as backdrop. Many a fine SF story presumes a technological breakthrough and explores its implications without attempting to predict how the thing might actual work.
For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.
