I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership in the world, to explore, to seek knowledge.

After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.

When you head on out to the Moon, in very short order, and you get a chance to look back at the Earth, that horizon slowly curves around in upon himself, and all of sudden you're looking at something that is very strange, but yet is very, very familiar, because you're beginning to see the Earth evolve.

I do believe there is life in outer space. Mathematically, there has to be, and if you believe as I do that there is a creator of the universe, then how can we be so arrogant to believe he created life here and nowhere else?

Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time?

You know, you don't need a leader to sort of administer something that's going very well. In fact, in one sense, an overly ambitious person in that circumstance can probably screw it up.

Rarely have elected leaders been so intent on defying the public will.

In Israel, there is a peace camp that can convene 200,000 people in central square of this city, on very short notice, and there is a major movement among academics, politicians, thinkers, and public leaders for peace, even at a painful price. On the Palestinian side, you can find them individually here and there, but there is no public movement.