I made my drama teacher cry. I only took drama to get out of writing papers in English and the teacher was this thespian Broadway geek and here I was this Italian guy from Staten Island and I would put her in tears.

When I was a teacher teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books.

I never wore a tie voluntarily even though I was forced to wear one for photos when I was young and for official events at school. I used to wrap my tie in a newspaper and whenever the teacher checked I would quickly put it on again. I'm not used to it. Most Bolivians don't wear ties.

He was the editor of our paper. He created the publishing house in Hebrew. He was - I wouldn't say the 'guru' - but really he was our teacher and a most respected man. I wrote for the paper of the youth movement.

To the teacher weighed down with paperwork I say: you've been messed around too often. You came into teaching to spend your time teaching children not filling in forms.

The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.

Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.

Rag paper containing hemp fiber is the highest quality and longest lasting paper ever made. It can be torn when wet but returns to its full strength when dry.

My style has been pretty much like a newspaper. It's got politics in it it's got media sports family relations you know all the sections you would expect and wonderful religion things.

I worked at my high school newspaper at Andover which came out weekly unusual for a high school paper. Then my first day at Penn I went right to the 'Daily Pennsylvanian' and pretty much spent most of my college career working both as the sports editor and then editor of the editorial page.

Read the news section of the newspaper and there is confusion and uncertainty a world buffeted by large forces people neither understand nor control. But turn to the sports section and it's all different.

I was sports editor for my high school newspaper but I think I shied away from journalism.

The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers and as a national champion I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.

I made a circle with a smile for a mouth on yellow paper because it was sunshiny and bright.

But the power of science lies in open publication which with the rise of the Internet is no longer constrained by the price of paper.

If you publish a scientific paper it is very hard to start a nationwide debate about something. If you do this in a movie you can start a debate. We like to create a bridge between those two worlds - film and science.

I got to spend all of my time every day at work reading and editing papers about cutting-edge technical research and getting paid for it. Then I'd go home at night and turn what I learned into science fiction stories.