We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.

The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion... It's, what, a few months in Iraq.

Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.

Technology has to be invented or adopted.

Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown the Roman Empire. It never happened.

Human societies vary in lots of independent factors affecting their openness to innovation.

Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?

Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.

We tend to problem our problem why not let our problems become more problematic than us

If a pen can communicate our thoughts, dreams, and emotions and be the voice of our soul, then ink is the medium that carries the message.

Be sure you are right then go ahead.

It's obvious, but perhaps worth saying, that happiness has virtually nothing to do with the state of your intellect.

...With stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.

There are a number of people who won't be president in 2009, and Mark Warner is one of them.

My wife has a line of fine Indian foods, that's kind of a very successful business. It's an interesting way to see life.

More important than a work of art itself is what it will sow. Art can die, a painting can disappear. What counts is the seed.

The movie says, You can lose your job and your way and still rescue yourself. 'Larry Crowne' creates a self-excavated utopia, and I love that idea, that message.

I always try to individualize everything, every person. I see individuals and that's why I've never fallen for racism, or any type or classification of people.