The 'Night Train' has already been a crazy ride for me. We flew around making TV appearances and stadium announcements all over the country fueled by little more than coffee and adrenaline... so many fans jumped on board with us and I couldn't be more thankful.

But by the time I was 40 everything was winding down. It started after the war. On the plus side there was more more products and technology. But for me the nightlife was winding down the glamour the fun.

Which European leader today would not relish the wonder-working powers of a Moses? Budget deficit? Unpopular cuts? How about just a little miracle an overnight increase in gold reserves a new oil field or the next world-changing communications technology? Surely that's not too much to ask.

I do readings at the public library. I just did a benefit scene night for my old acting teacher.

Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago.

My overnight success was really 15 years in the making. I'd been writing songs since I was 6 and playing in bands and performing since I was 14.

I worked half my life to be an overnight success and still it took me by surprise.

This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at work - they seem to go through the motions of labor without putting strength into them. They keep their powers in reserve for their own use at night perhaps.

Tonight I should like to thank all those who have shared my work and to acknowledge the debt that I owe to my wife whose encouragement to put research before all other things has been a great strength to me.

At Casablanca we did 'Midnight Express ' 'Flashdance ' and 'The Deep.' My willingness for risk has always been my strength.

The strength that I have comes from irrigating the citrus plantation ploughing in the vineyard guarding the melon fields at night. I believe that's what gave me the strength.

And I watch 'Saturday Night Live' religiously I have since I was a little boy. I watch it basically like one of my favorite sports teams.

I was a huge theater geek growing up and that was not the easiest thing in the world especially growing up in Chicago where sports are really the norm. I was always off to the theater at night from 7 years old on. Friends there in the Midwest who could talk to you about the idiosyncrasies of 'Pippin' were few and far between.

Monday Night Football started in 1970 and when it started it was something extremely special because sports had not been aired in prime time. So it was a novelty and a lot of people thought it wouldn't work and of course it worked spectacularly well.

But sports photography isn't something you just pick up overnight. You can't do it once a year for fun and expect to do a good job. And I take pride in what I do.

Bobby Knight told me this: 'There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.' In other words a good offense wins.

I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.

I believe that writers unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite are at heart people who live by night a little bit outside society moving between delinquency and conformity.

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.

Cockroaches and socialites are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything.

When Whitney Houston died I felt great sadness. My sadness of course was about our collective loss - when you listened to this nightingale sing your body would drop into a chair your head would tilt up a small smile would creep across your face and inside you knew that there was a higher power somewhere: gifted beautiful spiritual.

Oh the summer night Has a smile of light And she sits on a sapphire throne.

Laughter is day and sobriety is night a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both more bewitching than either.

I got to spend all of my time every day at work reading and editing papers about cutting-edge technical research and getting paid for it. Then I'd go home at night and turn what I learned into science fiction stories.