This is my philosophy since 'Star Trek' and 'Battlestar': You have to be willing to have fandom hate what you're doing or love it and not care either way on a certain level, because you cannot become a slave to their emotion or their vote. It's not a democracy, as I'm always fond of saying.

I started my career at 'Star Trek,' and that had a huge, very vocal fan base.

I think I started watching 'Trek' in the mid-'70s when I was in elementary school, and I was just into space. Somewhere along the way, I started realizing there were really interesting ideas in the show.

What got my interested in science fiction was actually the American space program.

We've gone through rounds of tax cutting and rounds of tax increases in modern U.S. history. We haven't really had a big igniting of a trade war belligerence since the Depression era, and that's not an era that we want to repeat.

Dare to Discipline' was published in 1970 in the midst of the Vietnam War and a culture of rebellion. The book was written in that context, but the principles of child rearing have not changed.

We all want peace. Unfortunately, there are times when peace must be defended by fighting terror and tyranny.

I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace. I thought it was about the job or a book or making a name for myself.