I'm still astounded by some people's reaction to things I consider quite normal.
If I were to share with you the number of attacks that come into the Duke network every day, you would be astounded. And it's not from people working out of their garage; it's from nation-states that are trying to penetrate systems.
I'm astounded by people who can listen to music when they write. I can only assume that they have multi-track brains, while mine is decidedly single.
I grew up in a small Southern town, and there were white people and black people. Coming to New York to go to Columbia, every time I went into the subway I was absolutely astounded because you see people from all over the world who actually live here - who aren't just here as tourists.
I'm constantly astounded by the way people talk so openly to someone they don't know. They clarify in their own minds what is important to them, discover another person has similar problems, and create trust and even a friendship.
There's a fascinating statistic: One out of every four people in America has visited New York since 9/11. It is astounding. Now, I don't know how you count it; it's some people coming multiple times.
It seems astounding to me now that the video games are perhaps as important as the movie themselves. And people will spend 2 or 3 years obsessing about the video game in exactly the same way that they'd be obsessing about the movie if they were working on that.
If all I hired were cake decorators, our cakes would just look like cakes that people decorate. We do astounding work at Charm City Cakes and to do that you need people who think in astounding ways. Artists just think in different ways.
It's astounding to me that in a country where there is an ever-growing divide between rich and poor, that people won't accept the need for regulation on banks and salaries and so on.
The Russian people have unilaterally made their choice in direction of democracy in the early '90s. They will not be led astray. Nobody should be having any doubts.
The President of the Church will not lead the people of the Church astray. It will never happen.
By nature, I tended to trust people and was typically open and transparent... But such transparency would go astray when others saw us out of context or when I gave trust to those few who were unworthy of it.
About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.
Actually, I believe in everything, including astrology and tarot cards. All of it is just another way for people to try and tighten the link to the spirits in our universe. I believe it exists for all people.
Sometimes people ask me how difficult the astronaut program was, but being in Sierra Leone, being responsible for the health of more than 200 people, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at age 26 - that prepared me to take on a lot of different challenges.
Like other kids wanted to become firemen or astronauts, I wanted to make people laugh.
I claim that space is part of our culture. You've heard complaints that nobody knows the names of the astronauts, that nobody gets excited about launches, that nobody cares anymore except people in the industry. I don't believe that for a minute.
When we meet people who are astronauts or deal in astronomy, it's always really fascinating.
Let's not spend resources that we don't need to be sending astronauts back to the moon. Let's not spend expensive resources on bringing people who have reached Mars back again. Prepare them to become a growing colony.
If you take 10,000 people at random, 9,999 have something in common: their interests in business lie on or near the Earth's surface. The odd one out is an astronomer, and I am one of that strange breed.
