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.

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.

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.

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

We show confidence and faith in our own selves as well as in life when we decide to let go.

But you’re out of another world old kid … You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.

Each one of us has a comfort zone. The problem comes when we are unwilling to leave it.

Sometimes not seeing things can be a blessing.

I never saw myself as a singer; I never really thought I had the voice for it.

My writing, I am prepared to think, may be a substitute for something I have been born without - a so-called normal relation to society. My books are my relation to society.

Without acting, I cannot breathe.

I have not been recognized.

We did every scene together, every day for four months, and it could have been a disaster, if we didn't get on, but we clicked straight away. Elijah Wood is just the nicest guy.

Relationship humour gets the most laughs. If I'm able to get the women laughing, men will have to laugh along because they would be scared to death.