To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.

The job numbers are positive. We've had more jobs created now than were lost during the recession. We're seeing that the creation we're seeing those numbers not only grow but shift toward the private sector and shift toward full-time employment and these are all signs that the recovery is taking some hold but we're not out of woods.

Anyone in politics would like to have great economic numbers.

The Arabs could have peace tomorrow if sufficient numbers of Palestinians were not content to be used as cannon fodder in fruitless assaults on Israel even as the surrounding Arab powers distract the Arab masses with the red herring of Israel while retarding their countries with their repression and corruption.

Since those who believe they need a hero/celebrity outnumber the actual heroes/celebrities people feel safe and comfortably justified in numbers committing egregious crimes in the name of the greater social ego. Ironically diminishing their own true hero-celebrity nature in the process.

I realise that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.

The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day.

Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

I tried marriage. I'm 0 for 3 with the marriage thing. So being a ballplayer - I believe in numbers. I'm not going 0 for 4. I'm not wearing a golden sombrero.

And books that were published in much larger numbers than Selfish Little are hard to find. And publishers who wanted to publish my last few works have them stuck in limbo while new distribution ideas and legal issues and fears are blown away.