By the time I was in sixth grade I could bound every country in the world from memory.

Can you imagine young people nowadays making a study of trigonometry for the fun of it? Well I did.

I guess the two things I was most interested in were telescopes and steam engines. My father was an engineer on a threshing rig steam engine and I loved the machinery.

I have a lot of sympathy for young people because I realize how disturbed I was. How would I deal with life in the future? What would I do for a living?

Young man, I am afraid you are wasting your time. If there were any more planets they would have been found long before this.

Unfortunately, a lot of the concepts in the Bible are based on ancient mythology that doesn't fit the findings of science.

I was interested in telescopes and the way they worked because I had an intense desire to see what things looked like, so I learned how to use telescopes and find things in the sky.

You have to compete with others in the field. Sometimes the competition gets pretty fierce because you're competing for funds or grants to do your work, the financial work.

That's the way I got along in life. I don't ever remember being particularly jealous of anybody, because I figured if I can't do it myself, I don't deserve to get it.

When I was in the fourth grade, I became intensely interested in geography and I learned it well.

I think the driving thing was curiosity about the universe. That fascinated me. I didn't think anything about being famous or anything like that, I was just interested in the concepts involved.

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.

Fate is the cruelest of masters, takingLife when it pleases or at random, handingRigged decks to whom it pleases, cheatingAll alike and none the wiser, takingEverything away from those with nothing.

When we give, we receive much more than what we have given.

In the United States, you can put on a cowboy hat and join the country-western neighborhood. If you're down below 14th Street in New York City, that's bohemian; that's left-wing.

The Booker 2011 is of no more interest to me than the world heavyweight championship, which I'm not going to win either. It's irrelevant.

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry.

My experience on 'Jarhead' was life changing.

I want to be surrounded by women, I want to be snuggled and cuddled and pampered.

When you do an interview with me, you're talking to a cheap imitation of the person that I really am. There's no magic in my words, it's just me talking.

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, Adorns and cheers our way; And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.