The green appeal of solar sailing - traveling by light, once chemical propellants have done their dirty job of orbital insertion - ought to be powerful.

I'm not convinced that Nixon would have survived in office if he'd burned the tapes, but I do believe he would have served out his presidency if he'd never made them in the first place.

One's politics are part of one even when one is writing. But if I want to say anything about the state of civil society, I will write an essay. The responsibilities you feel as a novelist are literary ones, I think, not civic ones. And I think politicians are interesting to write about.

I think that the worst form of naivete can be extreme cynicism. If you think that nobody comes to Washington to do any good whatsoever, that is almost as bad as being starry-eyed and thinking that they are all here to advance democracy.

I would love a combination of action/adventure and... love. And stories told with heart. I would like people to be invigorated as well as moved. People to see the movie and see that. I love to play, y'know, well-rounded characters.

As a director, I've wanted to have adventure in my life, creative adventure. I think it's partly because I grew up, basically from age six to 26, mostly on television series where the producers find something that works and then do it over and over and over again.

In Ronald Reagan's chaotic childhood, the imagination was armor. There is nothing unusual about that; transcending the doubts, hesitations, and fears swirling around you by casting yourself internally as the hero of your own adventure story is a characteristic psychic defense mechanism of the Boy Who Disappears.

I don't think I'd be happy if I were satisfied. I enjoy challenge, and I wouldn't say that I'm an ambitious person career-wise or financially, really. I would like to travel more comfortably, but that's really about all I need.