I can bear my own sorrows, but the sorrows arising from the calamities visiting Islam and Muslims have crushed me. I feel each blow delivered to the Muslim world as delivered first to my own heart.
Before the discovery of quantum mechanics, the framework of physics was this: If you tell me how things are now, I can then use the laws of physics to calculate, and hence predict, how things will be later.
I've never been one to carefully calculate my career decisions, to sit on the outside looking in. I go with my passion and what moves me.
I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.
I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating - is this the exact right mix? I think that's - to me it's anti-comedy. It's more about PC-nonsense.
My doctor asked me how many golf balls I had hit in my career. I'm lying there in bed calculating somewhere between four and five million golf balls I had hit to do that on my body.
I think the comic that's gotten me the most feedback is actually the one about the stoplights. Noticing when the stoplights are in sync, or calculating the length of your strides between floor tiles - normal people notice that kind of stuff, but a certain kind of person will do some calculations.
However I am is however I am. When you see me onstage or in the press, there's not a lot of thought and calculation that goes into it.
I do not remember how it got into my head to make the first calculations related to rocket. It seems to me the first seeds were planted by famous fantaseour, J. Verne.
People challenge my nerd cred all the time. I just show them the photo of me winning my middle-school science fair, wearing my Casio calculator watch and eyeglasses so big they look like they can see the future.
Joining the Liberal Party was a no-brainer for me... And when you are a young man, you don't get a calculator out saying, 'Am I going to get to power?' You get propelled forward by idealism.
I love math and was a math teacher for many years, so it was fun for me to write several math books, including 'Fraction Fun,' 'Calculator Riddles,' and 'Shape Up!' 'Fun with Triangles and Other Polygons.'
Usually, girls weren't encouraged to go to college and major in math and science. My high school calculus teacher, Ms. Paz Jensen, made math appealing and motivated me to continue studying it in college.
Becoming a parent has changed the risk calculus for me. But it might be age, too, and seeing a lot of friends die in the mountains. Will I take the same risks I took in my 20s? Probably not, but I will always push myself in the mountains.
My calculus teacher would send me home every weekend with 400 problems to solve. At the time, I felt it was so strict and demanding, but now I realize that the workload instilled in me a sense of discipline, and showed me that even if I wasn't inherently skilled at something, I could be, with enough dedication and practice.
I went to a special public school that was much more focused on academics and learning. My two best teachers were in accounting and calculus, so I fell in love with that, which made me want to go into business.
Growing up in Highland Park, in high school, I had some very influential teachers: I had a math teacher who taught calculus that helped me learn to be in love with mathematics; I had a chemistry teacher who inspired us to work what was in the class and to go beyond.
It took me a while to learn the true meaning of patience and surrender, but I have finally accepted that healing doesn't happen on our schedule. It doesn't have a clock or a calendar.
I have a massive phobia for schedules and calendars. I need people to tell me where I need to be. I can't bear to see it in black and white. I think it's a fear of being pinned down.
I write back to all the soldiers who write to me and send them posters and calendars.
