"Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism."
"Today I will get to travel to many different places. I will see little corners of the world that many people do not get to see. I will learn about how people live by studying what they discard. I will get to know the city better by navigating its streets and actually entering homes and talking with residents in all of its neighborhoods. And I will witness a little bit of history in every piece of ephemera that passes before me."
"I don't really get why people are so excited about hot springs. There's not much about a hot spring that I can't simulate in my bath tub. And in my bath tub, the only fat naked guy I have to look at is me."
"Isaac Newton revolutionised maths with his calculations of speed, but few people would say he was mainly a mathematician. It's only recently that maths, like most subjects, has been separated from an overall idea of how the universe works, and as a consequence been reduced to a tedious sea of squiggles. "
