Our instinctual understanding of reality is the same as most other animals.

When science tries to resolve its conflicts by adding and subtracting dimensions to the Universe like houses on a Monopoly board, we need to examine our dogmas.

Sometime in the future, science will be able to create realities that we can't even begin to imagine. As we evolve, we'll be able to construct other information systems that correspond to other realities, universes based on logic completely different from ours and not based on space and time.

The farther we peer into space, the more we realize that the nature of the universe cannot be understood fully by inspecting spiral galaxies or watching distant supernovas. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves.

By living so long, the supercentenarian earns the prefixal 'super' and becomes a person suddenly freighted with power and meaning. He's Gandalf, Yoda, the Ancient Mariner, perhaps with some otherworldly insight. He's lived so long that, in fact, he's living the afterlife to his own initial life.

What I learned from Mel Brooks was audacity - in performance as in life. Maybe you go too far, but try it.

After Lockerbie, everyone thought, now we've learned the lesson of how to be proactive instead of being reactive. Unfortunately, September 11 came and we know the result. Thousands of people lost their lives. Security totally failed, not at one airport, at three different airports around the country.

I've been rich; I've been poor. I've been successful; I've been decimated. And the way I felt inside didn't change dramatically. It's less stressful to have money, that's for sure. But that doesn't mean I felt fulfilled. So I've learned to live in the smaller moments of life.