I am a profound pessimist both about life and about human relations and about politics and ecology. Humans are inadequate and stupid creatures who sooner or later make a mess, and those who are trying to do good do a lot more damage than those who are muddling along.
Books that change you, even later in life, give you a kind of electrical shock as the world takes a different shape.
I'm not trying to be something that I'm not, and I think a lot of people can relate to that. They want something that's real, and I think I give that to them.
My father left me with his love of Jewish studies and cultural life. To this very day, along with several physicians and scientist colleagues, I take regular periodical lessons taught by a Rabbinical scholar on how the Jewish law views moral and ethical problems related to modern medicine and science.
If you go into any physics lab, everybody is depressed and feels isolated. We don't get any feedback that anybody cares about what we're doing.
Obama repeatedly has condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization that should be isolated until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel.
I think that is one thing I've picked up: follow a routine, be consistent, and everything is going to fall in place. If you are scrambling around, and you are late for stuff, that adds extra stress, and you have to go out there and hit a 97 mph fastball.
If they are going to nibble and try to go below the zone or off the plate a little bit, I want to try and get a pitch in the zone that I can do damage on.
My mom is proud of me. But she might not be too happy about the hours I keep or how little I eat. I wake up so late that it would be inappropriate to have breakfast. At most, I will have a snack in the day and dinner. I realize that it's not the healthiest way to live, but it's all I really have time for.
One, I push my deadlines closer than anybody else, or let's say it this way: I'm really late.
