You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution.
For the vast majority of world history, human life - both culture and biology - was shaped by scarcity. Food, clothing, shelter, tools, and pretty much everything else had to be farmed or fabricated, at a very high cost in time and energy.
My dad and my mom convinced me to go into biomedical engineering because they said astronauts going to Mars will need life support systems.
Johns Hopkins introduced me to two defining events in my life: commitment to biomedical research and meeting my future wife, Mary.
The trouble is the field of science, medicine, universities, biotech companies - you name it - have been so splintered, layers, sub-divided, hacked that people can spend their entire career studying one tiny little cog of life.
We must address, individually and collectively, moral and ethical issues raised by cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which will enable significant life extension, designer babies, and memory extraction.
So when I was 24, someone suggested to me that I was bipolar, and I thought that was ridiculous. I just thought he was trying to get out of treating me. But he was also responding to the chaotic nature of my life.
I wrote a show - just as a joke, actually - and called it 'Bipolar, Bath, & Beyond,' just to bring some humor to it. I wasn't saying to myself that I'll 'come out' with it - I didn't think there was anything to 'come out' with - I was just writing another one-woman show about my life.
I had been a hurricane all my life. And that was, of course, because I was bipolar and did not know it. And I was - you know, the mania took control. When you're on stage and when you're performing, you're heightened, and it's an extreme.
The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.
In 1957, 'West Side Story' had introduced the musical to the reckless dark side of teen-age life; 'Bye Bye Birdie,' set in Sweet Apple, Ohio, where the citizens apparently dress mostly in chartreuse, mauve, orange, periwinkle, and turquoise, was a walk on the bright side.
Let us look at Jim Crow for the criminal he is and what he has done to one life multiplied millions of times over these United States and the world. He walks us on a tightrope from birth.
It gets easier as you get older because life deals its particular hand, and our experiences get deeper, richer, more profound. When I gave birth to my son, something happened. It is a huge thing for a woman: a whole set of emotions you never had before arrives, and a love you never had before in your life is now on tap.
I have been told for most of my life that the white man on my birth certificate is not my biological father and that my actual biological father is a light-skinned black man.
You should feel good about making your home nicer for your family and your friends. You should feel great about cooking a good dinner and making a dress for a granddaughter, creating a beautiful birthday party. It's all part of life.
I don't want to be dragging myself on stage, year in year out, until someone else tells me it is time to go. There are certain birthdays that make you revalue your life.
For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their descendants are living together in the birthplace of their three great monotheistic religions, a life free from fear, a life free from want - a life in peace.
Life is a difficult game. You can win it only by retaining your birthright to be a person.
You are free to choose what you want to make of your life. It's called free agency or free will, and it's your birthright.
I don't think people should have boundaries put on them, by themselves or society or another gender, because it's our birthright to experience life in whatever way we feel best suits us.
