Goethe died in 1832. As you know Goethe was very active in science. In fact he did some very good scientific work in plant morphology and mineralogy. But he was quite bitter at the way in which many scientists refused to grant him a hearing because he was a poet and therefore they felt he couldn't be serious.

One of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war.

Science was something that really caught my attention. It was something I really could sink my teeth into.

Just after World War II this country led the world in science by every way you could measure it yet the number of scientists was a tiny proportion of what it is now.

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying he wanted me to make up dialogue.

The mysteriousness and mystique of space is such that science fiction attempts to tantalize you by telling you a story that could possibly be out there and that's the appeal of science fiction.

Science coverage could be improved by the recognition that science is timeless and therefore science stories should not need to be pegged to an item in the news.

Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.

Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window except that the birds might eat them.

We all remember where we were and we all remember what we were doing. I had a brother in New York an uncle lots of friends in New York. It made me angry it made me sad what could I do.

Gorillas are in danger of being wiped out by the Ebola virus. I feel like we have limited time to get to know them and understand them and they're going to disappear - that's terrifically sad. Wouldn't it be great if we could stop that?

The world would be a very sad place if readers could only love one story.

I had a vocal coach. It's a sad thing but I had to hire someone so that I could get my Australian accent back.

I think it's a terrible thing to write and not enjoy it. It's a sad thing. But of course a lot of people do work because they need to eat. And we all need to eat but that's not the only reason to work. You couldn't have paid me not to write.

If I could be more vague I'd write more about people in my life but I hate hurting feelings or making people feel uncomfortable. I've done that before. Unless they're sad songs. Those get finished fast but the mean ones often end up at the back of the bottom drawer and it's probably for the best.

I mean I was just one of the ones who got exposed and because of the position I was in where I was in my life it went mainstream. A lot of people got out of it after my situation not because I went to prison but because it was sad for them to see me go through something that was so pointless that could have been avoided.

I talked to ex-wives of musicians of the '70s for research. They're the funniest people in the world yet there is this sad beautiful thing in their eyes that says they've seen more than they could ever possibly tell you.

The sad fact is that the same terrorist scenarios if they occurred in five different States there could be five different sets of responses to the American people. We need at a minimum a level of coordination on communicating threats to the public.

When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31 I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments.

But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was I could not remain ignorant of their import.

If I get the forty additional years statisticians say are likely coming to me I could fit in at least one maybe two new lifetimes. Sad that only one of those lifetimes can include being the mother of young children.

I don't live with people that's why my relationships last. I'm not romantic. Even when I was a teenager if somebody asked if they could hold my hand I'd say - no it's not heavy I can hold it myself thank you'.

In Romanticism the main determinant is the mood the atmosphere. And in that regard you could also describe Schubert as a Romantic.

When I start to write words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist.