I kind of just lucked into and fell into the other profession. It was really just an outgrowth of the fact that when I was in art school, I had no money whatsoever.

Around 1980, I went back to painting with a vengeance.

Never underestimate a child's ability to get into more trouble.

The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass.

There's a fundamental question that everyone has to answer: What fraction of your life do you spend in service to your fellow man? It's not something that science helps you answer at all. It's one of these questions like, Who are you gong to marry? Science doesn't really help you with the question.

I never considered myself a writer. I'm a teacher. In a way, I feel kind of... kind of guilty for all the people who are writers who hope to be on the best-seller list someday, who live for that and don't get it, and it came to me as a kind of free gift, like God coming to Abraham and announcing, 'I've chosen you!'

Amazingly when you add life and consciousness to the equation you can actually explain some of the biggest puzzles of science.

I receive emails from readers that both break my heart and give me a profound sense of connection. Several months ago, I received an email from a teacher who told me that 'Legend' was the first book one of her troubled young students had ever read to the end. He cried when he finished it. Stories like that stay with you forever.