I admired Eugene McCarthy's courage and although I left his Senate staff after four years to accept a job as the researcher on the editorial page of the 'Washington Post ' I remained an admirer.

When I was 24 I was full of life. I was that ham who wanted to be famous a movie star all that stuff. I think it's cool. But it was not what I was searching for really. It was more a delusion.

You have riches and freedom here but I feel no sense of faith or direction. You have so many computers why don't you use them in the search for love?

The first legislation that I produced relating to the Internet was a bill to overturn a restriction inside of the law that prohibited the Internet backbone from being used for anything other than research and scientific and educational communication.

I started on the use of the Internet for scientific communication. Our research group was one of the very first to make really systematic use of it as a way of managing research projects.

I thought my life was mapped out. Research living in the forest teaching and writing. But in '86 I went to a conference and realised the chimpanzees were disappearing. I had worldwide recognition and a gift of communication. I had to use them.

I get heartfelt thanks from all kinds of people. Today I heard from a waitress in Georgia who has lost her job and is trying to figure out how her local bank can change the terms on her credit card and I heard from a physicist at a major research university who wants to explain a better theory of financial stress tests.

In Britain like most of the developed world stem-cell research is regarded as a great opportunity. America will be left behind if it doesn't change policy.

I read and walked for miles at night along the beach writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.

I want a car that will last 10 years or longer because I totally hate the process of researching shopping for a new car and then haggling for the price. I wish I could just snap my fingers and my car is there.