You know, I always say white is not a colour, white is an attitude, and if you haven't got trillions of dollars in the bank that you don't need, you can't be white.

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.

I buy about $1,500 worth of papers every month. Not that I trust them. I'm looking for the crack in the fabric.

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.

When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It's not enough, but it helps.

In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport.

I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.

When I was doing 'Smile,' I was looking back at pictures of myself and going, 'Thank goodness I couldn't do the sprayed-bangs thing! Everybody's so embarrassed by that hairstyle now, but I was never cool enough to pull it off!'

All of the narration in 'Smile' is first-person. Most of the books that I grew up reading had first-person narrators for some reason. My diaries were written in this voice, and since this story is autobiographical, it just felt like a natural extension.

I used to rely on black-and-white, and while I was working on 'Smile,' I learned to adapt to color on my end.

It's like Canada is the little brother to the United States and one day they are going to show the world they're just as cool as their successful big brother.

My whole life, growing up, I always wanted to be in comedy. I never felt comfortable doing the 'teen hunk' thing.

Thank you for reminding Canada that I'm a disappointment to them. I like hockey, I love it, but I'm not an avid hockey - let's face it, true Canadian - fan. I've always been more into snowboarding and skateboarding and sort of the alternative sports, I'm not crazy about hockey - but love it!

We were in recycling before recycling was cool.

New Zealand's food and beverage industry is the lynchpin of the country's prosperity. Which may explain why it has concentrated their governments' minds.

It's cool to go places where working people are happy.

When you're young, you don't have any experience - you're charged up, but you're out of control. And if you're old and you're not charged up, then all you have is memories. But if you're charged and stimulated by what's going on around you, and you also have experience, you know what to appreciate and what to pass by.

I'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature.

Earth is a flower and it's pollinating.

The rockets and the satellites, spaceships that we're creating now, we're pollinating the universe.

To be yourself is truly a revolutionary act, and I think more and more people should try it, because it's gotten me a pretty cool life.

I'm proud to carry that torch and be like, 'I'm gay! I'm black! Hang your dreams on me. Hang your hopes on me. I'll carry them to the best of my ability.'

I hope that people will say that 'she told the truth, she told her truth, she wasn't afraid to live her truth, and she wasn't afraid to live her truth out loud.' That's what I want my legacy to look like.

Maybe the coolest people are the ones who don't care about being cool.

For the better part of my adult life, I proudly avoided nerd/nimrod/goober status. I was always just cool enough.

I love my wife dearly, and, therefore, I've never cooked a meal, romantic or otherwise, for her.

When someone is good, but it doesn't seem like their world will collapse if they don't get the part, it's more appealing. It's like dating someone: You don't want someone who's too into you.

In my wildest dreams I never thought - well, I never thought I'd work.

I was sort of traumatized by girls in the third grade. Because there was a girl in my third grade class I had a crush on. I bought her a box of Valentine's Day chocolate. And I put it in her cubby with a note that said something like, 'I am deeply in love with you, Your Secret Admirer.' And I didn't sign my name.

I had a friend who, after 25 years of marriage, found himself trying to date again, and it was completely different. Everything had changed, and he had to reacquaint himself. It was funny even talking to him about it. For someone who has been out of the loop, it's a different world.

People say, 'What's the secret to a marriage?' There's no secret - I think you get lucky.

Sending a handwritten letter is becoming such an anomaly. It's disappearing. My mom is the only one who still writes me letters. And there's something visceral about opening a letter - I see her on the page. I see her in her handwriting.

Your brain, like your tongue, is a muscle. Practicing thinking by yourself really helps develop your brain, which you need throughout your day. I like to practice my thinking in a darkened room, alone.

I think in most relationships that have problems, there's fault on both sides. And in order for it to work, there has to be some common ground that's shared. And it's not just one person making amends.

In an enclosed space, a camel's breath can change the atmosphere of the room. Not only just the smell, they literally seem to change the atmospheric pressure. It's so disgusting. It's like they have eight stomachs each more rancid then the next and it just comes out of their mouth.

I don't think of myself as funny - I don't fill up a room with my humor... I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.

Reading a book, watching a movie, going to a play, it's transporting, and very, very exciting. And to be a part of that, creating things with your imagination, whoa.

I'm a fun dad, but I don't know if I'm the fun, crazy dad.

The best food is in Chicago. There are great restaurants everywhere, from fancy places to burger joints.

We have to change the way people look at scientists. Today, they are the nerds, the geeks. Instead, we want some of the cool kids to say, 'Hey, this is all right.'

For me, it was really a childhood dream coming true. It's sort of where the fantasy led reality, and then I got to be on the Starship Enterprise anyway. And the cool thing was - is I was the only person on this bridge who had actually been in space.

When you have teachers saying, 'I don't have enough time for hands-on activities,' we need to rethink the way we do education.

I think science fiction helps us think about possibilities, to speculate - it helps us look at our society from a different perspective. It lets us look at our mores, using science as the backdrop, as the game changer.

The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity.

We look at science as something very elite, which only a few people can learn. That's just not true. You just have to start early and give kids a foundation. Kids live up, or down, to expectations.

In fourth grade, I was interested in all areas of science. I particularly loved learning about how the earth was created.

Science provides an understanding of a universal experience. Arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.

I want to make sure that that future that we're creating is one that is the best it can be for people around the world, and also one that includes the full range of our talent and our skills - and, you know, gender and ethnicity, geography - to solving the world's problems.

I stayed in the astronaut program until 1993. People ask me why I left. I thought I had a lot of things to contribute that would be difficult to do if I stayed. I thought I could have a stronger voice as an advocate for space exploration. So I ended up starting my own technology consulting company.

I believe the biggest impediment we have right now with going to Mars is public commitment. More people need to see themselves as a part of space travel; we need to see more inclusiveness.