I wanted to be a snowplow driver when I was a kid. Growing up in the Rocky Mountains, that's the most glorious job you can imagine. But then my mother took me to a lecture about the solar system when I was 8, and I got hooked.

We're born with a curiosity about the universe. Those people who don't have a curiosity don't have it because it's gotten beaten out of them in some way.

When I ask myself what are the great things we got from the Renaissance, it's the great art, the great music, the science insights of Leonardo da Vinci. Two hundred years from now, when you ask what are the great things that came from this era, I think it's going to be an understanding of the universe around us.

I think that the future of the human race is to spread through the universe, and now is the time that we should be laying the foundations for that.

No matter how brilliant an actor is, there's always a point where they let you down, but that's all part of their journey. They might be trying something they need to explore.

As one of the first editors at 'Outside' magazine in 1975, it was my contention that most American writing going back to James Fennimore Cooper and then through Twain up to Hemingway had been outdoor writing. At that time, adventure writing meant stuff like 'Saga' or 'Argosy.' 'Death Race with the Jungle Leper Army!' That kind of thing.

We travel so much as touring musicians and artists that sometimes, when you hear a great song that you really think could be on your project, you go ahead and record it instead of try to write it.

I'm really lucky because I can sleep on planes. I wear an eye mask, I have a book, and I sit down and pass out pretty easily. I know that not everyone can. I think I'm good at it because I travel so much, and for me, being on planes is like a sacred time. It's the only time to zone out and meditate.